


Revenge of the Jedi

by elizabeth_hoot (anghraine)



Series: Revenge of the Jedi [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-05
Updated: 2011-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-23 10:52:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 58,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/249485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/elizabeth_hoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the escape from Cloud City, Vader keeps plotting against the Emperor and trying to get Luke to help him, Leia gets drawn into the plight of the surviving Alderaanians, Han hangs on Jabba's wall, and Luke leaves the squadron to be a full-time Jedi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a re-imagining of _Return of the Jedi_ , based on some of the original plans, and not a 'what-if,' as such. While it occasionally draws on material from ROTJ, the prequel trilogy, and so on, it isn't compliant with the canon of anything except the film versions of _A New Hope_ and _The Empire Strikes Back._

Darth Vader had not, from any point of view, killed Anakin Skywalker.

He often wished that he had. Instead, as he knew perfectly well, that part of himself had been defeated, never destroyed.

At first, it seemed to be constantly shrieking at him -- _what am I doing oh Force what am I doing what I am doing?_ It had taken him years to silence the voice of his weaker self, and even now, it would sometimes cost him a moment’s hesitation as he went about his duties. But Anakin Skywalker meant nothing to him -- he was a weak, mewling prisoner who occasionally rattled the bars of his cage and shouted at his captor. Nothing more.

Yes, Vader claimed pieces of Anakin’s life as his own, but that, he felt obscurely, was part of his victory. Everything that had been Anakin’s was now Vader’s by right: his faith, his past, his powers.  

Time passed, and the name _Skywalker_ lost all meaning for him. His triumph was complete.  

Then he saw the plans for the Emperor’s newest toy.    

“The Death Star isn’t merely a battle station,” Tarkin told him. “It will be the size of a moon, and have sufficient firepower to destroy planets.”

He was Darth Vader. His capacity for horror had long since shrunk to nothing; he had not thought that anything could even dismay him. But this --

Billions of Imperial subjects. _Loyal_ Imperial subjects, most of them, innocent of any wrongdoing. Meaningless slaughter, loss of life, waste of resources. Clumsy and random too, a blaster aimed at planets. Their own planets. Not the way of the Force. Foolish. _Anathema._

Vader may have been obliged to purify the Order of the treasonous and unworthy, but he remained a Jedi, a servant of the Force. For the first time in fifteen years, he was in undivided agreement with himself.

 _This thing is an abomination._

“Lord Vader?”

“I was not aware that the Rebellion controlled any entire system,”  said Vader.  

He had not thought he would ever be grateful for the mask, either.

No, he did not approve of the Death Star. But in the end, it made little difference. He knew his duty -- not to the Emperor, who he had despised for years and hated for years before that, nor to the simpering sycophants who filled the court and the higher ranks of the military. Vader’s loyalty was to the Empire, as it had always been. He did what was necessary -- whatever was necessary.

So he stepped on board the station, and did not execute any of the heretical fools who willingly served there. Admiral Motti didn’t count. Vader had no intentions of killing him, on that occasion. Motti presumed to question the will of the Force, to doubt its power. He had to be punished.

Vader permitted Motti to live. He deferred to Tarkin, as much as he was capable of deferring to anyone. He interrogated Princess Leia. He listened to her lie. While he elected not to enlighten Tarkin on that point, his silence served no purpose. Alderaan burned.

Tarkin was a Force-blind fool, whose allegiance to the Empire sprang out of nothing more than a desire to wreak havoc across the galaxy. Naturally, he felt nothing. Palpatine must have sensed it, but if he had ever concerned himself with the good of the Empire, that time was long past. He, too, would have felt nothing.

Darth Vader had killed more men than he had bothered to count, but always for a purpose. Not like this. The anguish of billions screamed through his mind and his lungs struggled for the next breath. In that moment, Anakin thought the respirator had failed, and he was finally (free) dying. His mechanical fingers dug into Princess Leia’s shoulder.

Then the screams died away and he heard nothing but his own breath, once more steady and controlled. The respirator had recovered from its momentary lapse, and he was himself again.  

Vader stared down at the remnants of Alderaan and supposed that the Emperor considered this a reasonable way to keep order. It was certainly true that Palpatine had never concerned himself with anything other than acquiring as much power as possible, but once, he had at least been shrewd and pragmatic with it -- a competent despot if never a benevolent one. In recent years, however, he had grown careless, foolish. Now, it had reached the point where he thought to strengthen the Empire by turning valuable systems to rubble.

Vader did not believe that Palpatine had turned senile in the usual manner. But apathy and complacency had taken their toll on his once-impressive will. That much would be contemptible in anyone, but it was deplorable in those who thought to harness the power of the Force. The Emperor, of all people, could ill-afford it; sunk as he was in the Dark Side, any weakness left him vulnerable to its ravages. Whatever shreds of reason he retained would soon be gone.

Vader had always meant to overthrow him, when the time was right. That time, he decided, was rapidly approaching. He had only to find a way. Unfortunately, Palpatine’s powers had not vanished with his competence, and even Vader’s were not quite sufficient to overcome him.

The right opportunity would present itself, he knew with all the clairvoyance at his command. Not in the distant future. Soon. He need not bide his time much longer. But at present, the Force told him to watch, and wait.

When the moment arrived, Vader would be ready. For now, he bowed to the dictates of lesser men, and left to defend the Death Star from the Rebels’ assault.

He might have disapproved of the Death Star and the nonsensical slaughter of billions of citizens, but it was still an Imperial station. He knew his duty. So he planned for a future without war, chaos, or needless destruction -- or Palpatine -- and shot down every Rebel pilot he saw.

Only one provided any significant challenge -- one who shone like a small star as he hurtled through the trench. Vader was somewhat less than surprised, and almost regretted his obligation to bring the pilot down. Naturally, the Force sought the Death Star’s destruction, and would inevitably achieve it -- but not, if Vader had anything to say about it, today.

In the event, he didn’t, if only because another Rebel darted in out of nowhere and sent Vader’s TIE fighter spinning into space. A few seconds later, the Death Star exploded and another million deaths reverberated through the remains of Vader’s body. He collapsed.

It took him some time to return to Imperial Center and a month more to wholly recover. Afterwards, he pursued the Force-sensitive pilot with single-minded purpose. His efforts did not go unrewarded. Within a year, he had acquired the pilot’s name in the course of conversation with a captured Rebel.

At first, Vader felt only surprise -- a surprise so great that he accidentally broke his prisoner’s neck. It was a pity, he thought distantly; the creature might have had more information. Then he realized exactly what had just shocked him.

 _Skywalker._

It was his name. His former name, that was -- but the name of those who shared his blood. They had always been strong in the Force; it was unlikely, but not beyond the realm of coincidence, that the young Rebel pilot might be some sort of distant cousin. It had to be that. He’d only ever had two nearer connections amongst his kin, his mother and his son. The former had died near her home, the latter with his Jedi abductor.

He’d buried Shmi’s body behind the homestead, carved her name in Basic and then in the Alsaraic characters she’d laboured to teach him, and added the dates that marked the beginning and end of her life. Shmi Skywalker Lars; Marashmi Adanai. Forty-nine years old. It was a long life for a slave.

Luke, though, had left no body. If Vader had been Force-blind -- perish the thought -- he might even have held out hope. But he’d felt it happen. He’d felt Luke fade into the distance, and then a sudden, sharp weakening, followed by silence.

There hadn’t even been a skeleton to bury. There was no grave for Vader’s son, dead before his third birthday. If he’d lived, he would be almost a man by now, as their people had measured such things.

The pilot, his captive had mentioned, was now barely nineteen. Just as Luke would have been. But Luke was dead. It must be someone else.

It wasn’t. With a birthdate and surname to guide them, his agents had little further difficulty in unearthing the pilot’s identity, and every shred of information that could be found about him. Since they valued their lives, they sent the data to him immediately and discreetly.

The pilot was a boy named Luke Skywalker, born on his son’s birthday, on the planet where his wife had given birth, raised by Vader’s brother and sister-in-law. If any doubts had remained, the accompanying holo would have eliminated them. From the untidy blond hair, to the wide blue eyes and cleft in the chin, the boy’s resemblance was unmistakable, both to Vader himself and to the child he remembered.

Luke Skywalker was a Rebel, a traitor, and little more than half-trained, yet the first thing Vader felt was pride. Everyone from Tarkin to the lowest officer onboard had gloried in their blasphemous creation, had blasphemed still further when they declared it invulnerable. Yet their precious Death Star had been brought low by an eighteen-year-old boy with no more knowledge of the Force than the merest novice. By _his son_. It seemed appropriate.

It was also distinctly satisfying. Luke could know little of their faith and clearly lacked any proper understanding of the Empire, yet he, too, upheld the will of the Force, after his fashion. Vader approved.

After _his_ fashion.

All his plans were now possible; _this_ was the opportunity he had been waiting for. But he would have to gain Luke’s allegiance -- which, he acknowledged to himself, would not be an easy task. Rebels were notoriously resistant to persuasion of any kind, and he considered it highly unlikely that Luke would be less so. He was, after all, a Skywalker.

More holos came his way, all of exceptionally poor quality, and mostly of the Rebellion’s increased recruitment efforts. Luke appeared in a number of them -- he had apparently acquired what passed for high rank in the Rebellion -- though he generally remained silent and watchful at Princess Leia’s side.

Princess Leia. She had been an ally, of sorts, once. She was nothing of the kind any more. Still, when he made out her grainy figure stride alongside his son’s, the two of them apparently connected at the hip, he thought of P -- he thought she might be of even greater use to him now than she had been as an Imperial Senator.

Luke could not yet sense anything that happened to her; his powers were still too undeveloped. But Vader had no doubt that his foresight would manifest in his son, or that he would know when it did. And he was accustomed to waiting.

He had not yet decided exactly how to manage the Emperor, when Palpatine himself appeared to demand a report of his progress. Vader grovelled to the best of his ability -- which was not particularly great but seemed to suffice -- and silenced his disgust at the indignity as he silenced all his weaknesses. Kneeling and mouthing pleasantries, after all, provided a few precious moments to collect his thoughts without visible hesitation, and he had never needed the time more.

Within those few seconds, he had made his decision. Luke’s loyalties could be dealt with in the future; for now, he had to protect his life.

Vader regretted to say that he had not yet located the pilot, but he could sense that he was growing closer. He was following several promising leads; undoubtedly one of them would turn up the right man. As soon as he identified their enemy with absolute certainty, Vader said, carefully thinking of nothing except his loyalty to the Empire, he would, of course, inform his master.

He lied on that occasion and every occasion thereafter, until it became more prudent to leak the information. The Force assured him that the droid sent to Hoth had, indeed, discovered the Rebel base; Palpatine was now at some distance, and Luke’s sympathies the more immediate . . . difficulty. The threat of the Emperor would likely be necessary.

He was, therefore, unsurprised when the Emperor demanded an audience, though the timing was, as always, less than convenient. Vader stopped chasing Rebel ships through the asteroid field and returned to his chambers, dropping to his knees.

Palpatine’s twelve-foot hologram flickered to life.

“There is a great disturbance in the Force,” Palpatine announced.

“I have felt it,” Vader said, truthfully enough. He had felt it for well on two years by now, but the Emperor preferred not to be troubled with trivial details.

“We have a new enemy: the young Rebel who destroyed the Death Star. I have no doubt this boy is the offspring of Anakin Skywalker.”

He didn’t cherish many doubts about it, himself. However, while it might be amusing to enlighten Palpatine before his death, Vader had no intention of tipping his hand this early.

“How is this possible?” he said flatly. They both knew perfectly well how it was possible that he, a Jedi to this day, could have offspring. Nobody still living knew how that offspring could be alive and well and blowing up space stations.

“Search your feelings, Lord Vader,” Palpatine told him. “You know it to be true.”

Vader fell silent. He could say nothing that was not false in every way, and he knew from harsh experience that that was rarely a wise approach to take with Palpatine.

“He could destroy us,” the Emperor said, and Vader knew, with the certainty that only came from the Force, that Palpatine had foreseen his own destruction. _Only_ his own destruction.

“He’s just a boy!” snapped Vader, then hastily added, “Obi-Wan can no longer help him.”

Palpatine gave him a long look.  “The Force is strong with him. The . . . son of Skywalker must not become a Jedi.”

To Vader’s horror, the weak, but somehow indestructible, part of himself that he kept shut up in the back of his mind, chose that moment to murmur, _I'm right here._ He instantly repressed the thought and focused on other, more productive ones.

Vader would find his son -- his, whatever Palpatine thought -- and finish his training. Luke _would_ become a Jedi, though not any kind that the likes of Obi-Wan would recognize.

It would be simpler, he decided, if he could further his own objectives while cooperating with Palpatine. For the moment.

“If he could be turned,” Vader said carefully, raising his mask to look directly at the hologram, “he would become a powerful ally.”

“Ye-es,” Palpatine intoned, “he would be a great . . . _asset._ Can it be done?”

It would have to be done.

“He will join us or die, Master,” Vader assured him, and bowed deeply enough to hide his thoughts.

It was true enough. Luke would, inevitably, die if he remained with his Rebel friends. And Vader had known that Palpatine would never suffer an enemy Jedi to live, even before he said so. The Emperor would demand Luke’s death if he did not turn. Yet the last time Vader had spoken to his son, Luke had been a toddling child barely able to lisp their -- his -- name. In all probability, he would not immediately see reason.

Vader could now pursue Luke with the Emperor’s knowledge and blessing, but he needed more than that. He needed time.

The Force was murky, but it did, at least, assure him that this problem would resolve itself. He suppressed a flicker of doubt and continued with his plans.

Solo, irritatingly, managed to evade Vader’s forces, but it was of no matter. He found their destination, and he reached it before they did. He was not acquainted with Cloud City’s present baron-administrator, but they were all much the same, selfish and corrupt. Vader would have little difficulty in managing Lando Calrissian.

Bespin itself was little-known to him; there were rumours of slave-labour, but not yet well-substantiated enough for him to have bothered to crush the colony. Its only notable feature was the enormous carbon-freezing chamber --

Carbon-freeze. Used on animals, mostly, but sufficiently advanced facilities had been known to work on sentients, as well. He’d have to perform a test of some kind, of course, before he risked losing his only son to a freezer, but that shouldn’t be any trouble. If it _was_ efficacious on humans, then Luke could be as obdurate as he liked. Vader would simply put him in carbon-freeze and take him -- not to the Emperor, though he would say so. To his own stronghold, where he could turn Luke at his leisure.

Of course, first he had to lure him to Cloud City, but he could sense the sharp improvement in his son’s abilities. If his friends were in pain, Luke would know it. And if he remotely favoured the people his parents had been, he could no more stay at a safe distance while they suffered than he could swim.

Those friends were headed straight towards Vader even as he planned. How . . . fortuitous.

In the event, however, their meeting was -- less than fortuitous. His plan worked well enough, certainly. The Wookiee’s and the smuggler’s agony provided effective lures, and the carbon-freeze worked perfectly well on Solo. Vader’s son sprang the trap as he had expected.

Luke didn’t recognize him, of course, and attacked him on sight -- also as Vader had expected. It seemed an excellent way to test Luke’s ability, so he permitted the fight to continue for some time. Luke, he determined, was powerful, resourceful and talented, but still very young -- in more than years -- and half-trained, at best. At the same age, _he_ had been a warrior for half a decade.

Vader could have ended the duel at any time. Instead, he gradually fought Luke onto the gantry, where retreat would soon send him tumbling into an abyss. If his son could not be convinced to join him, or forced into the carbon-freeze, then Vader would be obligated to end his life. It would be -- most regrettable, but not nearly as regrettable as permitting him to leave Cloud City as a personal enemy of the Emperor rather than a potential apprentice. Palpatine _would_ find him, and once he did, Luke's life would be short and his death long.

Vader very much hoped it would not come to that.

Luke glared at him with a hatred that, in other circumstances, would have been surprising. It was even hotter and deeper than the princess’, strong enough to send the Dark Side flowing through him, and he would need it. Nevertheless, there was something inexplicably unpleasant about it, even before it gave Luke the power to break past Vader’s defenses for a moment, and stab him in the shoulder.

It was the first time in their encounter that anything had happened that he neither expected nor planned, and the first time in years that Vader had suffered injury to anything but his mechanical limbs. He had almost forgotten that he had any flesh left to be injured.

Without a moment’s hesitation or thought, his lightsaber lashed out, and Luke screamed.

It was only then that he registered the strange, agonizing sensation in his shoulder as _pain_ , and realized that he had just sliced off his son’s hand. This, too, was regrettable, and he suspected had just narrowed his options considerably.

He vaguely realized that the lightsaber he had just sent flying into the bowels of the chamber was, in fact, his own. He would have to retrieve it later. For now, Luke had been effectively rendered incapable of further resistance.

Vader explained the situation as much as was possible. He was Luke’s father, he intended to rule the galaxy with him. Luke could join him willingly, or be taken to the carbon-freeze, or fall to his death.

Luke chose death -- or rather, what he thought was death. As soon as he jumped, Vader knew the fall would not kill him.

The uttermost necessity that he had so dreaded had fallen upon him. He had to kill his own son. It would be quite simple, take only a small, brief effort to reach out and crush Luke’s throat or heart as he fell. A kinder death, too, than the other that awaited him.

Yet he did nothing. It was as if the flaws that had crippled his old self, that he had kept safely locked up for years, each decided to stage a revolt at the same moment. They rose up in his throat, gripped his limbs, leaving him unable to act, almost unable to breathe.

 _No_ , he thought, _not my son_ , and could not bring any part of himself to disagree.

Very well. He did not have the . . . wherewithal to murder his own child. There were undoubtedly more disastrous failings he might have possessed, that he _had_ possessed; he would make the best of this one. Now, Luke had just been sucked into an exhaust pipe and -- yes, he would be hanging from a weather vane in a few moments.

Vader left the chamber and strode towards the landing platform, where two aides were waiting.

“Bring me my shuttle,” he said shortly, and spent the short journey with his mind fixed on his son. It seemed that Calrissian had double-crossed him, and helped the princess to escape on Solo’s ship, only to return for Luke. No matter, the hyperdrive remained inactive; Piett had assured him of that, and he had reason to be both careful and honest.

They could still capture Luke. And the others, of course.

His ship drew close to the floundering _Falcon_ , and Vader felt Luke’s presence, muddled but strong.

His breath caught, even through the respirator. “Luke,” he said, expecting his son to shut him out of his mind as soon as possible.

Luke’s response was instantaneous.

“Father?”

Vader could sense his confusion and exhaustion; that only made it more satisfying, in a way, to hear the title -- for the first time, too. Luke hadn’t used it, before.

“Son,” he said, unable to keep himself from lingering on the word -- _you are my son, my child, **mine**_ \-- “come with me.”

Luke’s mind recoiled from his, his bewilderment abating into horror and something reassuringly like fury.

“Luke, it is your destiny,” Vader told him.

He felt a flicker of anguish, almost as if it were his own, and steeled himself against it. Luke, too, would do what was necessary to accomplish his fate -- some way or another.

Then, impossibly, the _Millennium Falcon_ disappeared into hyperspace, and there was only silence.


	2. Chapter 2

Luke and Leia stared at the swirling galaxy, his arm slung over her shoulder.  She drew a sharp breath and released it.

“I’ll have to meet with General Madine,” Leia said. “I don’t even know how long it’s been since . . . I escaped Hoth, but there must be mountains of work for me to catch up with. When are you going to rejoin Rogue Squadron?”

“I’m not.” Luke dropped his arm, walking closer to the viewscreen. He could almost see her eyes following him. “I haven’t been back since the attack on Hoth, either. I discovered where I could find a Jedi Master, and I’ve been training with him the whole time. He was teaching me when I saw what happened on Cloud City. _Before_ it happened.”

“You can see the future?” Her voice quickened, making her sound more like herself than she had in -- however long it had been. “But Luke, that could be an enormous asset. Nobody would care that you went off without leave if you came back with that!”

“It’s not . . . perfect,” he told her. “I can’t be sure that what I see will always happen. Yoda -- that’s my master -- said I’d destroy everything if I tried to save you, and that didn’t happen. Well, I hope it didn’t.”

“ _I_ was destroyed,” Threepio said plaintively. Artoo gave a reassuring beep.

Leia ignored them, stepping forward to put her hand on Luke’s shoulder. “But you saw what happened to us in Cloud City?”

He swallowed. “Yes.”

“So that’s why Vader didn’t bother -- ” She glanced at him and snapped her mouth shut.

“Didn’t what?”

Leia only shook her head. “The reports we get from our spies are much more fallible than your visions. We don’t require perfect accuracy. Even if they’re only right half the time, it’d be so much more than we have now. With the help of your foresight, we might even be able to defeat the Empire!”

Foresight. The Emperor. _He has foreseen this_ , Vader had declared, and Luke hadn’t sensed any deception in him.  Not then, or -- later.

With an effort, he yanked his thoughts away from _later_. There’d be time enough for that after Leia left. And on the way to Dagobah. And the rest of his life.

Luke couldn’t quite bring himself to meet her eyes.  

“Not yet,” he said. “The Emperor can do it, too, and he has far more control over it than I do. I only had the one vision by accident -- I can’t promise that I’ll ever have another. Leia -- ” he kept his eyes steadily ahead -- “I’ll be able to fight the Empire so much more once I’m a proper Jedi Knight. And I promised Master Yoda that I’d go back and finish my training.”

Luke squeezed his eyes shut, the past all but echoing in his ears.  

 _You must not go!_ Yoda said. _If you honour what they fight for_ and _Only a fully-trained Jedi Knight --_

 _The Force is with you, young Skywalker._ Vader’s voice had inexplicably (ha!) lingered on the name. _But you are not a Jedi yet._

Luke opened his eyes. “There’s so much I’ve still got to learn,” he said, and his mouth thinned. “Also, there’s something I’d _really_ like him to explain to me. I know you must be disappointed -- ”

“Someday,” said Leia, “you all will realize that you have _no idea_ what I’m feeling.”

He started, turning toward her in surprise.

“Luke, listen to me.” She caught his face between her hands, forcing him to meet her gaze. “Yes, I’d like you to stay. You are already one of our greatest assets -- you don’t need to become some kind of reverse Vader for us.”  

Luke flinched. “I’m not -- ”

“But you have to do what you feel is right. If that’s going back to this old Jedi Master and figuring out how to stop blaster bolts with your hand, then do it. I won’t be disappointed, all right?” She dropped her hands and dredged up a smile. “I’ll even explain everything to the high command and your squadron.”

“Thanks, Leia. You’re -- thank you.” He just managed to return her smile. “Besides, I’d only be here for a few months, anyway. I’m sure Lando will have wormed his way into Jabba’s good graces by then.”

“It’s rather a specialty of his,” said Leia.

 

* * *

  
 

This time, Luke managed to land smoothly on dry land, or what passed for dry on Dagobah. He sprang out of his ship, Artoo’s indignant beeps trailing after him.

Luke suppressed the urge to skulk in the shadow of his ship. Yoda had told him in no uncertain terms that a Jedi must be as ready to claim his failures as his successes. Even Ben -- _Obi-Wan_ \-- had said something about that.

He took a deep breath, opening his mind to the flow of the Force. He wasn’t very good at it yet, but he could sense a low murmur of life across the swamp. It was soothing, now, and after a moment he felt that he had enough strength to hold the pieces of himself together. Maybe.

Luke squared his shoulders and headed towards Yoda’s house. There was no sign of Obi-Wan, but as he approached the hut, he saw a small green figure hobble out the front door, eyes narrowed in his direction.

Luke’s steps faltered, but he forced himself to move one foot in front of the other, until he stood before his master. He just managed to bow, his thoughts so empty, or crowded, that any words he might have spoken froze in his throat.

“Returned, you have,” Yoda said flatly.

“Yes, Master Yoda,” Luke replied, feeling every bit the callow, ignorant boy he’d been when he arrived, but couldn’t keep himself from adding, “I said I would.”

He lifted his eyes from his boots and met Yoda’s. The old Jedi Master looked exactly as he had when Luke last saw him, before -- Cloud City, but now there was something almost approaching sympathy in his gaze. Perhaps he already knew what had happened. Hadn’t he once said something about watching Luke his entire life, through the Force? No reason for him to stop now. Unless he was affected by the miasma of the Dark Side, like Obi-Wan.

 _Not like me_. Battling the Dark Lord, even losing to him, hadn’t made him weaker. He just wasn’t good enough. And for one moment, when he’d struck out wildly and -- somehow -- managed to stab his enemy, he’d even felt _stronger_.   

“Hm,” said Yoda, and turned back into the house, gesturing for Luke to follow him. “Saying is not doing. Expect to see you again, we did not. Not as yourself.”

 _Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy._ Even the involuntary memory, it seemed, couldn’t help but censor the end of that sentence out.

“Well, I am.” His flicker of bravado faded and he knelt before the table, ducking his head to avoid the low-hanging ceiling. “Mostly.”

“Hm!”

Luke had meant to work up to the subject of the duel, and what had followed it. It’d be easier. More sensible, too: he wasn’t foolish enough to think that Yoda could ever be caught off-guard, but he might be less so if they were already talking. He just -- Luke felt like he’d been cowering somewhere for days, while a storm howled and shrieked around him.  

He couldn’t hide from this any more.

Luke waited until Yoda faced him, and said, “Master Yoda. Is Darth Vader my father?”

He already knew. He’d felt it. But Jedi powers could affect the mind, and maybe Vader had -- had done something to him. Beside lop his hand off. Maybe -- he had to be sure.

Yoda’s face went blank, then he turned swiftly to his rootleaf stew.

“Tired, you look. Very tired. Rest, you need. Yes! Rest.”

Luke stared at him. Several long moments seemed to pass almost in a daze, and then all of his horror rushed back, crowding everything else out. “Yoda,” he said desperately, “I _must_ know.”

Yoda’s shoulders slumped. “Your father, he is.”

Luke recoiled back.

“Told you, did he?” asked Yoda, his voice bewildered enough to draw Luke out of his absorption in his own concerns.  

“Yes.”  

Yoda hadn’t known? If he hadn’t seen that, what _had_ he seen?

The old Jedi looked as upset as Luke had ever seen him, eyes downcast and head shaking. He jerked around, stirring his stew, still muttering to himself.

“Master? What is it?”

“Unexpected, this is,” Yoda said. “Unfortunate.”

Luke’s head snapped up. “Unfortunate that I know the truth?”

Knew the truth from Vader, Luke thought. From his _father_.

He didn’t know what to think about anyone anymore. There was Leia, of course. Han, frozen in time. But they weren’t part of this world Luke had stumbled into, like Obi-Wan and Yoda and Vader. They couldn’t guide him. But Yoda had deceived him. Obi-Wan had lied to him. Vader had at least made his intentions clear; he wanted Luke as some kind of . . . of dark apprentice, to help him remove his last obstacle to ultimate power. That was all he wanted, not --

 _Together_ , he’d said, the mechanical voice ringing with sincerity. _As father and son._

Luke squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t think about that.  

“No,” Yoda was saying, sounding more exhausted than Luke had ever heard him. “Unfortunate that you rushed to face him, that incomplete was your training. Not ready for the burden were you.”

He put two bowls of rootleaf stew on the table.  

“Eat!” he commanded. “Hungry, you are.”

Luke managed one swallow.

“Master,” he said, ignoring Yoda’s long-suffering sigh, “how could I ever have been ready for this? How _can_ I -- ”

The stew nearly came back up. Luke set his spoon down, unable to keep his mind from leaping all around, from Vader to Obi-Wan to his previous training to the warnings he’d received from all of them. He didn’t even know what to protest first.  

After several minutes of silence, broken only by Yoda’s slurping, he finally managed to bring his thoughts into some kind of order.

“Why didn’t you expect him to tell me that I’m his son?” Luke said, with an effort. “I’m pretty sure that was the point of -- everything.”

Yoda was already shaking his head. “The Force is strong with you,” he said simply.

“Yes, but -- ”

“With _all_ your family,” Yoda added. “A powerful apprentice, you could be.”

“I suppose,” said Luke, knowing he must sound like a sulky child, “but I still don’t see why it’s so strange that he’d tell me.”

Yoda scowled at him. “Once a Jedi starts down the dark path, forever it dominates his destiny. Anakin Skywalker? Ha! That man is gone. Swallowed by the Dark Side. Only Darth Vader lives now, and an abomination he is.”

He struggled to his feet, pouring himself another generous helping of stew. “The man that was your father -- long forgotten, he is. What that man defended, loved, fought for, Vader cares nothing for! He has destroyed it all. To acknowledge you . . . hm! There are many uses to which he could put you. Few required this.”

Luke gave him a sharp look. “It’s not what you foresaw, is it?”

“No. That future, at least, will not come to pass.”

He’d guessed as much already, and told Leia so, but even so, the sharp dread in Luke’s chest relaxed a little. “Did I -- follow him?”

Yoda nodded. “Turned to the Dark Side, you did. Or died. Nothing else did I see, yet -- lucky, we have been.” He squinted at Luke. “We cannot expect such luck again. Finish your training, you must.”

Dark, or dead. Wasn’t that what Vader had told him? That Luke would join him, or die? He’d practically begged him -- _don’t make me destroy you._

But it hadn’t happened. If Vader wanted him dead, he would have died. Even Lando had said something about it, when he came to the medcenter to properly introduce himself. _Why did Vader let you go?_ They’d even checked him for bugs, just to make sure it wasn’t part of another trap.

 _I don’t know. I don’t know anything_ , Luke had replied, groggy and confused from the anaesthetics, but it was just as true now. He didn’t understand any of it. After all of his crimes, why had Vader balked at filicide? Why had Obi-Wan lied to him? Why --

It didn’t matter, he told himself. He’d do anything to keep from turning into his father.  He had to.

“Yes, Master,” he said.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, while Yoda was still asleep, Luke wandered off to meditate by himself.  He hadn’t done it since he’d left.  

 _Last week_ , he thought in some amazement, and tried to put the feeling away.  

It only took a few minutes before he sensed the familiar, boundless presence of the Force, clustered brilliantly around him. Luke blinked, struggling to see past himself. There. Just on the edges of his vision, he glimpsed a few shining threads, spinning out from the tangled web that always seemed to surround him.  

There was Yoda, bright and clear, even in sleep. The swamp, dimmer, chaotic. Artoo, trailing discreetly behind him. Something shadowy in the distance -- far, very far now, but easier to sense than nearer, brighter sparks.  

The Dark Side? It had felt different at Bespin -- close, of course, but amorphous too, like a great smothering mass. This seemed cleaner, somehow, an orderly, calculated menace that almost reminded him of Yoda and Obi-Wan.

 _Oh! Just Father then._ He almost snickered at the thought, or vomited, but instead he pushed it, too, out of his mind, as far as it would go. If Vader was his father -- _since_ Vader was his father, that tie would always be there. He just had to remain . . . unreceptive. Not like he’d been on the Falcon, confused, shivering, helplessly responding to his father’s call.  

But that wouldn’t happen again. Not once he understood everything. He just had to stay away until the rest cleared itself up.

“That would be wise, Luke.”

He yelped and fell over, the Force slipping out of his grasp. By the time Luke managed to scramble to his feet and glare in the direction of the voice, Obi-Wan Kenobi had already materialized on a nearby stump.

“It’s nice to see you too,” he said, scowling. “Yes, my hand’s coming along nicely. Thanks for asking. And how is the Netherworld treating you?”

“Quite well,” said Obi-Wan.

Luke gave up. “Obi-Wan, why didn’t you tell me? You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father!”

“Your father was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force,” Obi-Wan replied, as steady and imperturbable as ever. He met Luke’s eyes without a moment of hesitation. “He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed.”

Luke stared.

“So what I have told you was true -- from a certain point of view.”

“A _certain point of view?_ ” Luke cried. He gave his old mentor a derisive look and turned away.

After what had happened at Cloud City, he didn’t think he could be placated by any explanation Obi-Wan might offer. But he had at least thought there would _be_ one.

“Luke,” Obi-Wan said, “you’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own points of view.”

Luke fell speechless. He didn’t even dare glance back. _Rage is a path to the Dark Side_ , he chanted at himself. _Rage is a path to the Dark Side. Rage --_

He could feel the ghost’s eyes on him, studying him. Then Obi-Wan said, “I don’t blame you for being angry.”

 _Don’t **blame** me -- !_

“If I was wrong in what I did, it certainly wouldn’t have been for the first time.” Finally, something other than calm or resignation coloured his tone. Regret, and something more. Grief. Loathing. _Self_ -loathing. Luke couldn’t look at him, not yet, but he listened.

“You see, what happened to your father is my fault.” Obi-Wan gave a sigh, and added wistfully, “Anakin was a good friend.”

Luke couldn’t help himself. He turned back towards him, sitting on a stump, and listened eagerly.

“When I first knew him, your father was already a great pilot,” Obi-Wan said, “but I was amazed at how strongly the Force was with him. He couldn’t have been much more than fourteen, and already he had more power than many of the greatest Jedi.” He shook his head. “No idea how to use it, of course.”

It all sounded so -- innocuous, Luke thought. So much like him. He closed his eyes, drawing a deep, shuddering breath.

Something nudged his knee and Luke glanced down. Artoo, abandoning all attempt at subterfuge, had joined him and was now emitting reassuring beeps. Luke managed a weak smile.

“Thanks,” he said, resting his hand on the droid’s dome, and turned back to Obi-Wan. “What happened? How was it your fault?”

“I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi,” Obi-Wan said heavily. “I thought I could instruct him as well as Yoda.”

Luke’s eyes widened. “Yoda wanted to train him?”

“The Jedi were in a rather -- singular position at the time,” said Obi-Wan. “We had been driven underground by the Empire, many years before, when I was still a young man. Most of us lived in the open, hiding our loyalties behind normal careers in the military, as I did. Yoda, however, advocated leaving the Empire entirely, and dedicating ourselves to the Force. His students were -- not soldiers.”

“Wars not make one great,” Luke murmured.

“Exactly. It was not a popular sentiment, even then, and few sought him out. Even fewer were accepted. But when I discovered Anakin, Yoda offered to train him. He felt very strongly that Anakin should be kept out of the Empire, and even more strongly that he should be taught to serve the Force alone. I was convinced, however, that Anakin’s potential should not be wasted on useless mysticism, that I knew better than my old master.”

Luke flinched.  

“I was wrong. But the other masters agreed with me, and I was chosen to instruct him. I brought him to Alderaan and taught him about duels, battles, war, tactics. Everything I knew. He was a good student,” Obi-Wan added somberly. “He learned.”

He stared at his glimmering hands. “By eighteen, he was a fierce, brilliant warrior, and I was . . . so proud of him. Of myself. I paid no attention to his dissatisfaction, his distaste for much of what I taught him. He was young; it would pass, and I could feel that something terrible was going to happen. I knew he would need every skill at his disposal.”

“And then he turned to the Dark Side?” Luke asked blankly. Obi-Wan laughed.

“Oh, no. Then the wars came.”

Luke felt foolish. Even back on Tatooine, he’d heard of the Clone Wars, and knew what it meant that Obi-Wan and Anakin had fought in them: they were heroes.

“It was customary for a new Jedi to be mentored by his former master. So even then, we were still together, and I was still teaching him. He had so much left to learn.” Obi-Wan shook his head. “Well, the fighting dragged on. Anakin had always detested anything that smacked of chaos or corruption, and we saw little else. The battles grew more brutal, and Anakin -- he loathed the wars, the court, the government, everything. Before he fell, he wanted nothing more than to save the entire galaxy, to put it right.”

 _We can end this destructive conflict, and bring peace and order to the galaxy._

Luke swallowed. “What happened?”

“He was already devastated by the war,” Obi-Wan said slowly. “He had become harsher, more ruthless, in his determination to end it, furious that for all his strength in the Force, he didn’t have the power to do so. Many of our fellow Jedi had died, including his wife, and he had . . . ”

With a rush of horror, Luke understood.

“. . . a child to worry about. If my mother was dead, I must have been born by then. I must have been there, with him.”

Obi-Wan nodded. “The wars, ending the wars, became an obsession with him. I was exposed as a Jedi and forced to flee, but he had learned his lessons. He continued to win battle after battle, and so was sent to win more of them. The HoloNet hailed him as the hero of the Empire.”

Beeping mournfully, Artoo rocked back and forth. Luke felt sick.  

“Anakin had none of the knowledge that Yoda would have given him,” Obi-Wan said, his voice thick with remorse, “that Yoda gave me. I never thought to pass any of that wisdom on to him. I taught him war, and I taught it well, and in the end it broke him. He fell under the sway of the Dark Side, and . . . ”

“It destroyed him,” said Luke. “That’s what Yoda told me.”

Obi-Wan gave a brief, pained nod.

Luke wished he knew what to say to him. _I’m sorry_ , but that didn’t mean much. The entire galaxy was sorry. He could offer forgiveness, but that didn’t seem right either. Obi-Wan had apologized for what he had done to _Anakin_ , not Luke, and Luke didn’t exactly see Anakin forgiving him in the near or distant future. Vader. Whoever he was.

“Well, it won’t destroy me,” Luke said finally. “I’m here with Master Yoda, and I’m going to learn everything he has to teach me. And I won’t fall.”

 

* * *

 

Yoda’s teachings had never involved the lightsaber, and he didn’t seem to care that Luke didn’t have one now.  

“Weapons not bring one closer to the Force,” he scoffed, and told Luke to stand on his right hand.

“There isn’t a hand any more,” Luke told him, dropping his gaze.

“My old eyes deceive me?”

“It’s a prosthetic, like . . . it’s not real.”

“Hm!” said Yoda. “Then stronger now, it should be.”

Luke sighed and flipped his body into the air, reaching out to the Force as he landed. He instantly felt it wrapped around him, no clearer than it had been this morning. He didn’t need to worry about any visions today, at least.

“Feel the Force around you,” Yoda ordered. “Around the plants, the animals. In the earth. Connecting everything. Even your friend here.”

Luke grinned. “Sorry, Artoo,” he said, focusing on the little droid. Artoo floated into the air, beeping indignantly all the while, and Luke tried to keep some part of his mind fixed on them both, even as he moved his attention to nearby rocks and frogs. He felt stretched thin, perhaps as much from Obi-Wan as from this, and didn’t dare reach further.  

Yoda had been right about the prosthetic. It seemed scarcely to feel his weight. The muscles in his arm trembled, but Luke only registered the sensation without much feeling it. He let himself fall deeper into the convoluted web, watching it spread further and further out, binding him to the rest of the galaxy.

Artoo. Three frogs. Seven stones. Only a little further off, Yoda, shining in the Force. Luke’s ship. Maybe he’d be able to lift it next time. Father, dark, focused, _sharp_ : so far and so close. Luke moved on to the most mundane object he could find. A hydrospanner in his supply box. Grease smeared its handle.

Luke looked further. There was a vine wrapping around a tree, perhaps a hundred feet behind him. The cave that marked his first great failure, shadowed and malevolent. Beyond them all, an impenetrable emptiness, illuminated only by an occasional, half-familiar glimmer. He might even been able to study it, if he hadn’t exhausted his energy on other matters.

Reluctantly, Luke withdrew back to himself. The parts of his mind that attended to the here and now were swiftly tiring; he closed his eyes and sent the droid, frogs, and rocks drifting back towards the ground, releasing his grip on them. With one last burst of energy, he dropped down himself, falling back on the flesh hand.

The Force stayed with him for another moment, but it was dimmer than he remembered from the morning, and he felt less entangled in it than cocooned. Then it faded away, and Luke was blinking into twilight.

Luke glanced around wildly. “Master Yoda? What happened?”

“Heh, the usual,” said Yoda, and smacked him with his cane.

“Ow!”

Yoda cackled. “Better, today,” he said. “Now, time for dinner it is, and then sleep, and tomorrow -- tomorrow, you will practice again.”

“Again?” Luke cried. “But, Master -- ”

“Again! Again, and again, until mastered yourself, you have. Only then can you learn what you must know.” He permitted himself a small smile. “But for now, good rootleaf stew you have earned, and rest.”

“Thanks,” said Luke, and stumbled after him.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day was very much the same, as was the one after that. On the fourth, however, the Force’s grip on him seemed a little less overwhelming. He didn’t feel engulfed in it, merely lost. However distantly, he could tell something lay beyond the apparent chaos, just something so incomprehensibly complex and convoluted that he couldn’t begin to understand it.

It wasn’t much of an improvement, he thought, slumping against against a tree -- he’d been so tired by the time he was done that it took him a full thirty seconds to pull himself back into reality. But at least it was something.

After a week, Yoda’s various gravity-defying demands had become as routine as training with his squadron had once been, and not appreciably more difficult. Back on the Death Star, he hadn’t known what Obi-Wan meant, but now he understood. Even when he couldn’t sense the Force, it was there. It would always be there.

In fact, he was almost reluctant to reach for it. That, too, had grown easier with time, but it was growing progressively _harder_ to let go of it. Even as he lost fewer hours to meditation, it took him longer and longer to climb back to reality. He hadn’t even noticed at first; thirty seconds didn’t mean much. But last time it had been five minutes, and the time was only growing.

Had _this_ ensnared his father? Vader, Luke felt certain, never released the Force at all. Had he reached for more, and more, until he demanded more than it would give him?

Yoda insisted not. He said it was a good sign that Luke struggled to return, that it meant he was growing more in tune with the Force.

“I don’t want to be too _much_ in tune with it,” he said, and Yoda scoffed.

“Impossible!”

On the eleventh day, he stood on his thumbs and saw Leia. It wasn’t like before -- or rather, it was exactly like before, but neither horrible nor urgent. She was simply greeting an elegant, auburn-haired woman in a white robe, who returned the salutation with restrained affection. Then they vanished.

Artoo lurched in the air, beeping all the while, but Luke’s disorientation only lasted a moment, this time. He managed to keep everything suspended around his feet, and didn’t move until his mind grew tired.

He stopped counting days after that.

Yoda continued to set him superhuman tasks. He jumped to the top of a tree, or thirty feet into a valley. He ran through the swamp so quickly that he shouldn’t have been able to see anything but a blur, yet everything around him looked sharp and clear. He levitated himself into the air to meditate, much to the relief of his droid. None of it was easy, but he couldn’t call it a challenge, either. It just was.

All the while, he felt the Force pulsing around him. Sometimes, he felt it even when he wasn’t using it -- he’d be listening to Yoda, or talking to Artoo, or eating breakfast, and the now-familiar awareness would spring into his mind. He would sense everything around him, every strand binding them to each other and to him, and a quarter-second later it’d be gone and he’d have rootleaf stew in his mouth.

Yoda scolded him often and praised him occasionally, but he seemed largely approving of it all. Obi-Wan, when he showed up, appeared almost optimistic.  

Visions -- if the snippets that passed before his eyes could be so termed -- came and went. He never saw anything very important, though nothing irrelevant either. A bounty hunter presented Han to an enormous Hutt: the infamous Jabba, Luke assumed. Leia argued with General Madine, slamming her hand on a table. Lando, his face half-concealed, bowed to a tall male Twi’lek.

They didn’t tell him anything he couldn’t have guessed already. It was reassurance, he supposed: Han was in Jabba’s palace, Leia was Leia, and Lando was in place. Everything was going according to plan. But it seemed rather a waste, to be clairvoyant and see only what he already knew. He should be able to do more.

He had never _tried_ to see anything. He didn’t know how. But he knew it was possible. Yoda had foreseen more than a trivial flash of the future, when Luke went to Cloud City. Apparently, so had the Emperor.

Early one morning, Luke walked off with Artoo -- in the general direction of the cave, though he didn’t dare approach it. He glanced down at the soggy ground and sat in the air, folding his legs and letting his hands rest on them.

He could already feel the Force blazing in him -- flowing, Obi-Wan and Yoda said, but it had never been like that for Luke. For him, it was fire. Had it been like that for his father?

 _I could ask._

He recoiled at the thought and opened his senses further. The Force gathered around him, as vibrant as ever, but it no longer overwhelmed him. It was nothing so crisp and controlled as Yoda’s presence, or Obi-Wan’s or Vader’s, but neither was it the wild tangle that had surrounded him originally. There was a coherency to it now, a discipline that sufficed to keep it in order -- barely.

He still didn’t know how to do much, Luke realized. Physical feats, yes, that kept him connected to the Force. He’d largely controlled his senses and reflexes. Beyond that, there was only levitation.

He stifled the voice that told him Yoda would have taught him more, if he were ready. Yoda was always talking about control, how he must do nothing without it. These bursts of prescience might be inadvertent, but they were exactly the kind of thing he was talking about. He had to stop them, or teach himself to control them. It wouldn’t be easy, of course -- he understood that now. It was just necessary.

How had he felt when the other visions came? Calm, but a little bored, worrying about his friends and the future. Of course it would be more complicated than that, but he replicated the feeling as much as he could, tamping down the restlessness that never seemed to leave him, letting his mind drift to the future. Perhaps he’d get some idea, anyway, of what he should do --

Luke, all in black, stood on the bottom step of a raised platform, looking out at several thousand people. He didn’t recognize most of them, but he saw a number of Rebels, along with the auburn-haired woman from before, and at least one man he could have sworn was an Imperial.

Leia was also standing apart from the crowd, just a few feet in front of him. She seemed unlike herself in about every way: her gown was stiff, ornate, and deep red, her hair long and plain, her eyes wide. Behind them, he saw a throne made of some dark wood -- stark in its simplicity, but undeniably a throne.

The other, future, Luke began to speak in a language that Luke himself didn’t understand. Leia looked like she might be sick.

The real Luke very nearly was when he saw the entire crowd kneel before them. Then a bell tolled, Leia turned to face him, and she, too, fell to her knees.

Luke squeezed his eyes shut, as if that could erase the vision from existence. He knew before he opened them again that he would see only the Dagobah swamp.

He hadn’t so much as twitched in the air. Luke stared blankly ahead, not even tired, and unable to congratulate himself on either success.

 

* * *

 

After that, visions came more quickly and more readily, whether Luke sought them or not. They were always of some point in the future -- some point in _motion_ , as he often reminded himself. He’d stopped Yoda’s visions from coming true. He could stop his own, too.

None of the others, at least, were quite so bleak. Not as far as he could tell. Neither were they so readily comprehensible; half the time, he didn’t even know what he’d seen. Sometimes he wondered if he’d just fallen into daydreams -- he knew he’d fallen asleep once or twice.

After all, he felt reasonably certain that Jabba the Hutt wouldn’t be killed by a bolt of lightning.

Luke continued his usual exercises with Yoda, or what passed for usual with Yoda, but his divided attention earned him more than a few bruises.

“I’m sorry,” Luke said, rubbing his shins.

“Ha! Sorry you are not, or _pay attention_ you would!”

“No, I -- ” Luke only hesitated a moment. “A few days ago, I tried to see the future, and now I can’t stop. I’m seeing things all the time now. I really am trying to concentrate, Master, but it’s like my head is about to split open.”

Yoda, clearly preparing for a longer lecture, stopped, one of his ears twitching.

“A few days? And nothing you said?” He stared up at him, punctuating the words with taps of his cane against the ground, and Luke could tell that he was anything but displeased.

“I thought it might . . . pass,” Luke protested. “I just tried the once. But it’s getting worse.”

“Not worse,” said Yoda. “Better.”

Luke stared.

“Many things are possible, with the Force. Many. But -- ” he waved his cane -- “this may come more easily to one, that to another. All are different, all have different strengths.” Yoda gave him a piercing look, then his eyes seemed to drift to something over Luke’s shoulder. “An affinity, Obi-Wan had, for sensing the motives of others. His student Qui-Gon, for understanding the Force. Many of mine, for healing.”

“You mean . . . ” Luke struggled to wrap his mind around it. He knew he was strong in the Force. Everyone had said so -- even Yoda, once or twice. Even his _father._ But it had always been such a struggle to learn anything. He hadn’t thought -- “You’re saying I have some kind of -- of gift for this?”

Yoda’s eyes swivelled back to him. “A gift, yes, yes.” Then he sighed. “Not surprising is this.”

Luke didn’t need to ask what that meant.

“It’s like somebody flipped a switch in my brain,” he said instead.

“Ha! You did.” Yoda considered him for a moment. “Foresight, hm? A dangerous gift, it is. Most dangerous of all, perhaps. Difficult to control. But control it you must.”

“I know, Master,” said Luke tiredly. “I’ve tried, but -- ”

“Teach you this, I will.” Yoda chortled at his surprised look. “You think I have not learned it? After nine hundred years? Or that nothing new, I would teach you?”

“Well, no -- ”

Yoda made himself comfortable on a stump. Luke took this as the message it was and sat.

“Seeing the future, the past -- not uncommon for Jedi is it. For anyone who lets the Force flow through him.”

“Like the Emperor?”

Yoda nodded. “Yes. Sees much, he does -- but not as much as he thinks. Wary, you must be, of overestimating your knowledge. Never can you see all.”

Luke nodded.  “Yes, Master.”

“Wary you must also be, of permitting your sight to dictate your actions. What you see _may_ be -- or may not.”

“Always in motion, the future is?” Luke said, with a faint smile.

“Yes! Always. This is the danger: that you take the future you see as a certainty, and do nothing, or become consumed by it, and think of nothing but avoiding it. You must do neither of these things.”

Luke frowned, puzzled. What was the point, if -- “I don’t understand,” he admitted. “If we’re not supposed to accept our visions _or_ reject them, why do we have them at all?”

“Said that, I did not.” Yoda’s eyes slid half-shut, his face softening. “Guides, they are. What we see is likely to happen, but may not. You must neither close to your mind to other possibilities, nor to those which you see. Let them help you, not overwhelm you. Understand?”

Luke chewed his lip. “I -- I think so,” he said. “It’s like other information, I guess? It’s ridiculous to ignore your own advantage, you just have to be careful.”

“Careful, yes. And especially you.” Yoda fixed a sharp eye on him. “Visions come to all with any strength in the Force. But _you_ sought them. You continue to seek them.”

He opened his mouth to protest.

“No excuses do I require! Intentional it may not be. Not important. With the Force, once you start down a path, forever you stay on it.”

Luke gulped.

“You wished to see more than the will of the Force showed you, yes?”

“Well, I -- ” He dropped his eyes, ashamed. _I brought this on myself._ “Yes.”

Yoda gave a small shake of his head, but it seemed less exasperated than -- amused? Luke didn’t understand, but he’d long ago given that up, when it came to Yoda’s sense of humour.

“Understand this, I do.”

 _“What?”_

Yoda chuckled. “Think that nine hundred years old, I have always been? No. Proper it is, for a Jedi to wish to further his abilities. Dangerous! And now you suffer the consequences. But proper. And now you must learn even more control.”

“I was trying to control it,” Luke said.

“Hm, told yourself that, you did?  Heh.” Without a pause, he continued, “You opened yourself to the future. Now the future will make itself known to you, but you have not the focus or knowledge to find what you seek. You have learnt to open your mind, but you must learn to close it, too. And you must learn to open it further.”

With a decided effort, Luke managed not to drop his head into his hands. “Further? But anything more -- ”

“Have I not spoken of the past? Of other places, other people, in the present? Certain knowledge this is, not like foresight. But never do you think of it. Always the future it is with you!” This time, the shake of his head was anything but amused. He added pointedly, “Just like your father.”

Luke winced. But the old fascination still pulled at him, and in many ways, the new horror augmented, even justified it. He fought with himself for a moment, then glanced up at his teacher. “He told you what he saw?”

Yoda’s ears drooped. “What he saw? No. Only that he had. Came to me for advice, he did.”

“Advice,” Luke repeated blankly. He imagined Vader sitting across from Yoda, asking him what to do, and almost broke down laughing. “Did he, um, take it?”

“Impossible to say. Never saw him again.”

It took a moment to sink in. Then Luke’s mirth died instantly.

“Said he’d seen something terrible. For the galaxy and for him, for his family. He talked of chaos spreading without end.” For a moment, the regret that seemed to have taken up permanent residence on Obi-Wan’s face passed across Yoda’s. “The duty of the Jedi it was to stop such things, I told him.”

“And he believed it?” Luke asked, but he already knew the answer. Of course he had.

 _He still believes it._

“Perhaps.” Yoda struggled to his feet. “This is why you must learn. Learn to think of the present, the past. Learn to judge the future properly.”

Luke only nodded.

This, he thought, was his destiny. Not killing his enemies, as they all seemed to think. Anybody could do that. His father had, and it’d destroyed him. But not before he’d passed his gifts and hopes on to his son. Anakin Skywalker might have fallen beyond all redemption, but Luke would redeem his legacy.


	5. Chapter 5

Darth Vader was most seriously displeased.

Unfortunately, he could not simply execute the object of his displeasure. Yet.

He sensed Luke occasionally, shining in the Force with all the stability of their native suns, but he had not found him. By all reports, _nobody_ had found him. He seemed to have disappeared off the face of the universe.

That Vader had company in his failure did nothing to reconcile him to it.

Neither did the Emperor’s new plan, which was exactly the same as his old plan -- turning planets into rubble until his Empire was either compliant, destroyed, or both.

Palpatine was a fool, he raged, and worse: a fool with nigh unlimited power. If he wanted to build a dozen of these . . . _Sun Crushers_ , he could. If he managed to garner the necessary resources. And cut the stormtroopers’ pay by three-quarters.

This, too, would not have the Death Star’s flaw in its design -- though knowing Palpatine, it would have another, equally exploitable one. Vader could not be certain; the Emperor had not chosen to inform him about this project, which he had discovered through -- alternate means.

Even if he had his own copy of the schematics, however, they would be of little use. It was the Death Star all over again; he had to be free to act when the right moment came. Any visible interference from him would be tantamount to treason; in all likelihood, would _be_ treason. And everything he did was visible; Obi-Wan had ensured that much.

Yet neither could he expect the Rebellion to step in, as they had with the Death Star; they didn’t even know of its existence, and of course he would never betray the Empire to them.

Vader paused. No, not the _Empire_. He had served it faithfully for almost thirty years and could not imagine betraying it. But Palpatine had proved himself vastly unworthy of his charge. He had authorized the murder of billions of his own subjects for no reason except to instill fear in the rest. He had failed to bring any kind of order to the galaxy and never seemed to feel the slightest interest in doing so. Vader suspected he found the endless conflict _amusing_.

Palpatine did not deserve his position as Emperor, and he did not deserve his strength in the Force. It would be a decided pleasure to betray _him_ , if it were possible, even to the Rebels. His weaker self could protest all it liked.

He paused, expecting the usual petulant complaints about loyalty and decency, and was met only with silence. That cringing, pathetic, sanctimonious side of himself had no objections whatsoever.

Interesting, if irrelevant.

Vader could easily think of any amount of intelligence which would do no more harm in Rebel hands than in corrupt Imperial ones -- and it was an unfortunate fact that, outside of his present crew, most of his colleagues in the Empire came only in varying degrees of corrupt and incompetent. And while war did not amuse him, the idea of the Rebels and the Emperor furthering Vader’s plots against them both, and thereby assisting in their own destruction, did have a certain appeal.

Unfortunately, it would never be more than a pleasant idea, unless he could find a way to leak information to the Rebellion -- nothing critical, of course, only nonsensical projects such as these, whose failure would be for the Empire’s ultimate good. It would require a different kind of agent: someone quick, resourceful, unobtrusive, someone trusted by the Rebel command, yet able to communicate with Vader.

Everything, he thought irritably, kept coming back to Luke. Luke, who he could not even find. On the few occasions when Vader did sense him in the Force, Luke kept his mind firmly shielded. His father could not have spoken to him even if he had tried.

Somebody was teaching him, and not what he needed to know.

Vader had to find him again, and not over the two years it had taken him to do it before. And he needed to prevent anyone else from doing so. And even if he managed those things, he then had to present an offer that Luke would not reject on the spot, as he had the . . . other. Something that Luke would find appealing enough to consider cooperating with him.

Vader remembered the Death Star, and thought _that_ might be the least of his problems.

 

* * *

 

 _“What are you doing?”_

 _An Imperial officer, too low in the ranks for Luke to recognize, jumped and turned his computer station off._

 _“Forgive me, I was just -- ” He glanced up and all but sagged in relief. “Oh, it’s just you, Jirod.”_

 _Jirod didn’t seem much mollified by this greeting. “Skywalker, again? Didn’t you hear Lord Vader say that he doesn’t want us wasting any more time on him?”_

 _“The Emperor still wants him. My cousin Radn -- ”_

 _“Your cousin’s an idiot,” said Jirod, “and so are you, if you’re thinking about disobeying an order straight from Darth Vader.”_

 _“That’s just some Jedi thing,” the officer said vaguely._

 _“So’s choking you with his mind, but it doesn’t stop him from doing it! Especially not lately. And defying him on his own ship? Janren, are you mad?”_

 _Janren’s sharp features settled into an obstinate expression. “The Emperor will reward anyone who brings him the Rebel scum, and I think I’ve found a lead.” He lowered his voice. “I’ve got a report from an old general; he’s retired on some station in the middle of nowhere, and he swears -- ”_

Luke’s eyes flew open.

He still struggled to foresee -- well, just to _see_ other places in the present. His mind felt inexorably drawn towards the unformed potential of the future. But he was learning, and he’d managed it a few times. Enough to recognize the clarity and certainty of the present when he saw it. This wasn’t a possible future, or even the most likely of many futures. It had occurred even as he watched, and there was no changing it now.

He flipped onto the ground and raced towards the hut, where Yoda was amusing himself at Artoo’s expense.

“Master,” Luke gasped.

Yoda glanced up, and Artoo wheeled backwards with an indignant hiss.

“Someone knows where I am! Or will, soon enough. I knew I should have refueled at a different station!”

“Hm,” said Yoda. “Seen this, you have? When?”

“Now -- I mean, I saw it now, but it was just happening now, too. I could tell. I -- ”

At Yoda’s unimpressed expression, Luke cut himself off. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing his jangling nerves to settle down.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be . . . I didn’t expect anyone would find me here.”

“Found you, no one has,” Yoda pointed out, eyes briefly narrowing in thought.

“Not yet, but I saw an officer finding something that will lead him to me. An Imperial officer, I mean. One of -- of Vader’s.”

Yoda’s eyes widened in alarm, and something weak and petty in Luke’s mind was gratified to see it. So often, his master seemed entirely above ordinary concerns -- even extraordinary ones, at that. But his fa -- but _Vader_ could disconcert even him. Luke repressed the feeling as unworthy.

“Vader! Knows you are here, he does?”

“No.” Luke thought back to the conversation he’d -- overheard. “No, he didn’t want anyone looking for me. Anyone else, that is. The officer was disobeying him. I think he was going to look for me himself, and . . . try to take me to the Emperor.”

Yoda chuckled. “Heh. Failed, he would have, yes? But it matters not.”

Luke stifled his instinctive protest. “I don’t think a single Imperial could overcome both of us -- ” Artoo beeped -- “sorry, all three of us. He didn’t seem like he commands any troops, either. But if he does track me here, the information will get out. These things always do.”

“Often,” Yoda allowed. “Always? No. There is no danger.”

He spoke with unmistakable assurance. Still --

“You’ve seen it? But maybe it’s like Cloud City.”

Yoda shook his head. “Never certain is it, what will happen. Possibilities only does the Force show us -- and impossibilities. When we are assured of what will _not_ happen . . . that is certain. This man will fail.”

Luke still felt a flicker of unease.

“Well -- if you say so,” he said doubtfully.

“Hm! Exercises you have to complete, yes?”

“Yes, Master Yoda.”

Luke trudged off, remembering when his most onerous obligation had been gathering water in his uncle’s fields. It had been miserable work, not like this, but unthinking, too. Two years ago, he would never have imagined that he’d be floating above a swamp, trying to pick out pieces of reality from the mass of sights and sounds that could flood his brain at any moment.

At least he’d learned how to shut them out, even if his control was otherwise painfully fragile. That had taken a week, a week he’d spent all but locked into the Force. He’d practically gotten used to seeing double by the end of it. This was the first day he’d done anything else -- which would have been a relief, except that Yoda had taken it into his head that Luke should be able to levitate himself, clear out debris from a recent storm, and sort through visions, all at the same time.

 _I bet Father could do it perfectly. Probably before he turned fifteen_ , Luke grumbled to himself, distracted by the multiplicity of tasks, and felt a distant surprise followed by -- amusement?

 _Father!_  

He instantly shut down _that_ connection, and everything else, too, feeling like he’d run a race in that single moment. He’d almost forgotten, thought of his father as the impossible paragon Obi-Wan had spoken of.

Of course, his father was _Darth Vader_. He had been that paragon, once, and now he was just as impressive, in an evil way. It was probably still true.

Luke remembered the duel on Cloud City -- not the revelation that had overshadowed everything else, but the actual duel. More than a duel, really; it’d been like the entire room was trying to kill him.

 _Definitely true_ , he thought. Luke sighed and went back to practicing.

 

* * *

 

If the Force could smirk, Vader suspected it would be doing so.

He had needed to find Luke; he had been frustrated by his fruitless search. Yet even as he plotted the overthrow of the Emperor and railed against the Sun Crusher in the comparative safety of his own mind, knowing that he could achieve none of his objectives without his son’s willing assistance, he felt a certain lack of -- urgency. The Force provided little guidance, but it reassured him that he need not overly concern himself.

Vader did not object to waiting; he had become accustomed to it over the last twenty years. It was one thing to wait for a proper opportunity to act. It was quite another to wait for a situation to resolve _itself._

He obeyed his orders from Palpatine, since there was apparently nothing else to do, and simmered.

Then, as he sat in his hyperbaric chamber, breathing the heavily oxygenated air, he heard Luke speak. Not to him, but nevertheless, Vader heard him as clearly as if he were standing beside him.

For a moment, he was motionless with shock, and then he caught a familiar petulant note and, painfully, smiled. Before he could say anything, however, the connection faded back into the usual distant awareness.

Vader’s suit gave a discreet beep. He permitted himself one last glance around the sterile white walls before the mask came down, tinting his vision red. He emerged from the pod with considerable more purpose than he had betrayed since Cloud City.

So. Luke did not keep his mind closed to him at all times. Clearly, he had been practicing a comparatively advanced technique, on this occasion, and had simply . . . forgotten. As he continued, he might very well forget again.

It would not provide the contact that Vader needed for his overarching plan, certainly. But it might suffice for his lesser goals; if he were watchful and prepared, he should at least be able to pass information.

Not the Sun Crusher, he decided; not yet. Small, trifling things, of no importance to the Empire and little to the Emperor. Inconveniences -- for his enemies within the Empire. Any number of the grand moffs, for instance, had an unpleasant habit of maintaining private fleets.

It would be . . . impolitic to act against them directly. That _was_ the difficulty of having enemies within the Empire. However, he kept a close eye on their movements, insignificant though they were next to the might of the Imperial Starfleet. They could be no threat to him -- but the presumption annoyed him.

Jerjerrod, Vader remembered, had plans to move a full half of his fleet to the abandoned Rebel base on Dantooine, in what passed for secrecy with him.

He _had_ been particularly irksome this week.

Several days later, when Luke dropped his shields again, Vader was ready. He reached out -- and almost fell into a morass of wild, confused, largely unconnected imaginings. It took him a moment to determine that Luke had not ingested any hallucinogenic substances, purposefully or otherwise, and was instead merely asleep.

All the better.

Seven hours later, and a few dozen light-years away, Luke Skywalker opened his eyes. He stared at the ceiling while his thoughts cleared, then blinked in confusion.

“Dantooine?”


	6. Chapter 6

Yoda was, to put it gently, less than delighted about Luke’s newest vision.

“Certain, you are?” he asked again.

Luke sighed. “Yes, Master Yoda. I know the difference between the Force and my imagination by now, and the Force is telling me it’s true. Besides,” he added, “I meditated on it all morning, just to be sure.”

Yoda shook his head.

“I _know_ this Jerjerrod is planning to move at least a dozen fighter ships to Dantooine.” Luke paused. “Which . . . sounds incredibly stupid, but that’s nothing new for the Empire. I have to get word to the Rebellion.”

“Familiar, this conversation is,” Yoda said, resting his chin on his cane and scowling up at him. “Remember, do you, what happened last time?”

“What? _I’m_ not going anywhere!”

Yoda straightened. “Hm?”

“It’d take me weeks to get there and then, weeks to get back. I can’t afford to lose that much time out of my training for some idiot moff.”

“In agreement, we seem to be,” said Yoda, looking surprised for perhaps the first time since Luke had met him.

Luke shifted his weight onto his flesh hand, and pushed a few sticky tendrils of hair out of his face with the other. “I thought I could send Artoo, but there’s nobody to go with him. I could set the coordinates on my ship and send him in that, but there’s no guarantee that something wouldn’t go wrong. And I wouldn’t have my ship, when I _did_ need to leave.”

“Trust in the Force, you must,” Yoda said obscurely.

It felt like he’d done nothing else since he fell on that weathervane at Bespin. He’d been upside-down then too, Luke thought, apropos of nothing. But everything else had been different. _His wrist burned and he couldn’t breathe and the Dark Side was **right there** and he reached in desperation for anything else, anyone other than Vader._

Luke’s eyes widened. Obi-Wan had either been unwilling or unable to help him, but _Leia_ had heard. He’d never wondered why -- assumed, perhaps, that Jedi could make themselves heard by anyone they deigned to address. But it wasn’t like that with his father.

 _With Vader_ , he automatically corrected, then frowned. He had accepted the truth, however unpalatable. At least he had told himself so. Why did he continue to deny it, even in this small, private way?

Luke thought of the few moments when he’d left his mind open to his father. If he were honest with himself -- and a Jedi could afford nothing less -- it wasn’t Vader’s presence alone that horrified him. By now, he’d almost grown used to it. No, it was that instinctive sense of familiarity, of affinity, that made it feel right to call out _son_ and _Father_ and hear their thoughts spilling together.

That, more than anything else, terrified him. Luke had to maintain a careful distance, ignore the ties between them, most of all those within his own mind. Otherwise, he would never manage to do what was necessary -- for himself and for the man his father had been. But editing the truth out of his private thoughts accomplished nothing.

So. In all probability, he and his father did not hear one another merely because Vader chose to speak to him. They were family; that changed everything. But Leia, as much as he loved her, was nothing of the kind.

Luke looked down -- or rather, up -- at Yoda.

“Leia rescued me at Cloud City,” he said. “They were trying to escape from the Imperial ships, and I called to her, and she _heard_ me. I still don’t know how.”

An indefinable expression came over Yoda’s face. “Attached to her, you are.”

Luke hadn’t known he could blush while standing on his head.

“When a Jedi feels attachment . . . hm. Many opinions there are, on this. But all are agreed: dangerous it is.”

“Yes, but -- ” Luke began, and paused. “Wait. We can only speak this way when we’re attached to each other? Jedi, I mean?”

“Limited, is my knowledge of this,” Yoda said slowly. “Done it I have not.”

It took Luke several seconds to realize what that meant. He tried not to look too horrified. _Nine hundred years old, and --_

 _I’ll never be the Jedi you are_ , he thought, and forced himself to regret it.

Luke felt Obi-Wan before he heard his polite cough. He lifted himself on to his fingertips, twisting to look at him.

“Hello there,” he said brightly.

“Good morning,” said Obi-Wan, with a suspicious twitch of the mouth. “I gather that you could use some advice?”

“I was just telling Master Yoda that I contacted Leia at Cloud City, and he says it’s because we’re attached. That it’s the only way people can do it. And I’m wondering -- ” Luke frowned, his eyes dropping to the tree tops. “Have you done it?”

“Several times,” said Obi-Wan, almost reluctantly. “Yoda is quite right. However, only _one_ attachment is required; it not be . . . reciprocal.”

For the first time in weeks, Luke lost his balance. He barely managed to keep himself from landing face-first in the mud.

Yoda gave him a sour look. At any other time, Luke would have been humbled, even embarrassed, but right now he couldn’t spare the attention. He simply stared at Obi-Wan, the blood draining out of his face.

For a moment, he couldn’t even speak. Then he said, his voice jerky, “You -- you’re saying that -- that communicating like this only means the person _talking_ is attached? The other person might not even know who he is?” He caught himself. “Or if . . . she did, she might not feel anything towards him?”

Obi-Wan seemed amused, and faintly pitying. “Possibly,” he allowed, “though rather unlikely, I’d say.”

“I -- ” Luke glanced from Obi-Wan’s shimmering features to Yoda’s disapproving face. “I have to go -- try and tell Leia. What I saw. I can’t -- not here, I have to go think. Alone. Just a little to the south.”

“Hm!” said Yoda.

“I understand,” Obi-Wan told him, and added lightly, “Don’t worry -- there’s no hurry.”

Luke just looked stricken and fled. He hardly even noticed that he’d slipped into contact with the Force as he ran, his preternatural speed taking him well beyond Yoda’s patch of swamp. He didn’t pause until his chest and thighs twinged, a little, and he stopped long enough to realize he’d never been quite so far before.

He didn’t bother releasing the Force; it wasn’t worth the inconvenience, and he’d be needing it soon enough anyway.

He _did_ need to contact Leia. Before -- anything else. Luke ran on a ways, remembering the despair that had nearly consumed him when he’d spoken to her, last time. He couldn’t do it that way now -- or he shouldn’t. But the Force was blazing cleanly through him, and -- well, if he could accidentally leak his thoughts into someone else’s mind, this shouldn’t be that hard. Luke reached through the Force, as far as his strength and discipline permitted, and filled his mind with her, with the day he’d met her.

Leia bolting out of her cell, grabbing his blaster and prodding them into the garbage compactor. Leia pressing her lips against his cheek, for luck. Leia, survivor of planetary genocide, comforting him when Obi-Wan died. Leia, solemn and thoughtful as she told him that Han would find his way in his own time. Leia rushing up after the battle, so small that her feet flew off the ground when she hugged him and Han. The three of them running off together, like children, or friends. Leia at the celebration, her gravitas breaking down when he grinned foolishly at her and she beamed back.

 _Leia, Leia_ , he thought, his eyes wide and blind as he searched through the galaxy for her. _Leia, I have to tell you something. Are you there?_

“Leia.”

Her presence flooded his mind, fierce and comforting. “Luke?”

“Leia, I -- ” He gasped for air, his limbs trembling. Something was wrong. Or was it always like this? He wouldn’t have noticed before. “I can’t explain, I don’t have time. Moff Jerjerrod is planning to move a good part of his private fleet to Dantooine. I thought you should know.”

“Jerjerrod? He’s always been a troublemaker; we’ll investigate it.” She was scribbling something, and his sense of her faded and crackled, like a bad holocall. “Luke, you sound awful. Is everything all right?”

“This is -- difficult,” he said thickly. “I’m sorry -- ”

She vanished. Luke reeled back, his mind greying over as he fell to the base of a tree. For six or seven minutes, he laid in a sluggish, uncomprehending heap. He might have f -- have been unconscious, though he didn’t think so. Even like this, he couldn’t miss the sense of his father’s attention, remote and diffused, narrowing to an intense focus on him across all the distance of space.

 _Father._ He stirred, tiredly closing his mind, and forced himself to sit up.

A woman was standing across from him.

Normally, he’d have been on his feet and brandishing his lightsaber at so much as a hint of intrusion. His legs, however, didn’t seem quite up to it. Or his arms. Or his brain.

Luke just blinked at her, instead. Between the Force and the swamp-mist, he couldn’t clearly make her out, but she didn’t seem threatening. Unsettling, the way she peered at him without a word, but not threatening. Just . . . familiar?

He squinted through the mist. She definitely seemed older than he was, but not by more than ten years or so. Her face, pale and fine-boned, was half-hidden behind her long dark hair, and she wore a sturdy gown that somehow reminded him of his aunt, even though Beru had mostly worn trousers.

He hadn’t met her. He knew he hadn’t. But he knew her from somewhere.

“Hello?” called the woman, drawing closer. She didn’t sound alarmed so much as -- bemused? “What’s your name? Who are you?”

“Skywalker,” Luke said blankly.

“How extraordinary,” she said, laughing. “So am I.”

Luke’s jaw dropped. “What? No, that’s -- ”

 _No! That’s impossible!_

He snapped his mouth shut. It shouldn’t be too hard to recognize her; her face was getting clearer as she took hesitant steps in his direction, though the mist didn’t seem to be clearing, and the Force still swirled around him. He let his thoughts drift, back ho -- to the homestead of his childhood, the . . . kitchen?

No, the room beyond that, where Luke sat at Beru’s knee, learning to mend his own clothes. Owen stood at the mantel, stern as always, but without the usual tension around his eyes and mouth; Luke hadn’t wandered off in nearly a week.

The mantel. The framed flimsiplast resting on it, upon which was printed an image of a woman and two teenage boys. The elder boy was the young Owen, of course, already gruff and broad. Beside him stood a child of perhaps twelve, with a familiar mop of dark blond hair, wide, solemn blue eyes, and an open expression, who towered incongruously over all the others. And the woman, long hair coiled at the back of her neck, her pale face worn before its time, but her dark eyes kind, rested a hand on each boy’s shoulder.

The same woman who, impossibly, stood before him at this very moment -- younger now, but gazing at him with that same wistful kindness, and -- and --

It wasn’t mist. She was _glowing_.

“Grandmother?” Luke gasped. Either he was much less exhausted than he thought, or Owen and Beru’s lessons were no respecters of human limitations, because he immediately scrambled to his feet.

“Oh, Luke, it is you,” she said, in a tone of immense relief. “I hoped so, but there _are_ cousins, and I’ve been trying to find you for years.”

“I,” said Luke, “uh, I’ve moved a lot. Ma’am. Um. You’ve been looking for me?”

“I wanted to explain everything to you,” she said.

He choked back a helpless laugh. “Then you’re the only one. You and Father.”

Shmi flinched.

“I’m sorry -- I didn’t mean -- ”

“You may mention my son to me,” she said calmly. Then her face tightened. “No one else will. Luke, I was brought up to serve the Force and honour the Jedi. I have always done both. But you need to know more than they will teach you.”

She perched on the edge of a log, and Luke -- though most of his energy had crept back by now -- dropped back down to the exposed roots of the tree.

“More?”

Shmi gave a decisive nod. “You must not fail in this. I -- cannot tell you all the reasons. The dead do have sources of knowledge that we are not permitted to share with the living, just as you may walk freely where we cannot tread.”

“I didn’t know anything could keep out a ghost,” Luke said, trying not to think too hard about her exhortation.

“I am a _Force_ -ghost,” Shmi reminded him. “I cannot abide the presence of the Dark Side. None of us can. It’s why we are unable to help you, when you draw near to Anakin. I attempted it -- I thought, if I could speak to him, that perhaps -- but it is impossible. I have not seen my son in eighteen years.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke said again. “I’ve only seen him twice, myself, so I can’t tell you much except what Obi-Wan has told me.”

“I am quite aware of what he told you,” she said, her gentle voice hardening. “We have . . . spoken on the matter, on a number of occasions.”

“I think Obi-Wan wants me to kill him. But how can I? I can’t let him -- I have to do something. I know I do. But he’s my _father_. Grandmother, I don’t think I can kill him. Not my own father.”

“I should hope not,” said Shmi.

Luke gave her a solemn, surprised look. “Then what am I going to do? Am I just being weak? I know his life must be torment, if there’s any part of him that even still exists. It might be kinder -- but I can’t. Not my father.”

“It is anything but weakness, Luke,” Shmi told him.

“I didn’t think it mattered at first. I mean, it did, of course -- it was awful! But I told myself he just wanted a . . . an apprentice. And Master Yoda thought so too. So I tried not to even think about it. But I kept remembering what he said. Not just about ruling the galaxy. He said he’d have to kill me if I didn’t join him, but he didn’t. I still don’t know why. And he spoke to me as we were escaping.” Luke dropped his head into his hands. “He called me _son_ , and I could tell he meant it.”

“Anakin spoke to you in your mind?” Shmi asked sharply.

Luke lifted his head, resting it against his curled fingers. “Vader did, at any rate.”

“Vader is not his name,” she said, in much the same way that Leia might say that the Empire was evil, or Han that he’d be leaving any day now, or Threepio that the odds of survival were almost nil. It was not a tone that allowed for any argument. “He is _my son_ , and your father, and his name is Anakin Skywalker, whether he remembers it or not.”

“He keeps telling me I’m his son,” said Luke, “so I think we can safely say that he remembers.”

Shmi smiled. “There are many ways of remembering.”

“You’re as cryptic as Obi-Wan, Grandmother.”

“A prerogative of the dead,” she said, almost lightly.

They sat in silence for a moment. It didn’t seem to matter that Luke kept his mind firmly closed to Vader’s presence; his father was there in every way but the actual. Then Shmi's form wavered, as Obi-Wan's did when he’d exhausted himself, and Luke hurried to speak.

“Grandmother? Do you know why -- that is, I managed to talk to a friend, in her mind. Obi-Wan says it’s because I’m attached to her. I mean, she’s attached to me too -- in her way -- but she didn’t have to be. So -- Father talking to me . . .”

“Yes,” said Shmi, and flickered even more wildly. “Luke, I can’t stay much longer. I will return as soon as I can.”

Luke managed to smile at her. “Thank you, Grandmother. I’ll do my best, I promise.”

There was a brush of something like wind against his cheek, and then she was gone.

So, his father was -- attached to him, after some fashion or another. It shouldn’t matter. Vader remained Vader, a traitor and a tyrant. It made perfect sense, Luke told himself, that such a man would value his -- his offspring, as extensions of himself. _An_ extension: of course Vader felt a certain possessive attachment to his only child. It wasn’t -- it didn’t mean --

Luke squeezed his eyes shut. Perhaps his inability to commit patricide was not a flaw, any more than Vader’s inability to commit filicide was in _him_. But even apart from that, he felt a weakness in himself, passed down with all his father’s power and will. At Cloud City, he’d come so near to turning his vision in the cave to reality. He couldn’t do that. His father might be attached to him -- for whatever reason -- but _Luke_ couldn’t be attached to _Vader_. He couldn’t.

It was just -- he’d idolized his father for as long as he could remember. Oh, not as he really was. The bold pilot, the valiant, noble knight, the brilliant warrior -- the hero. Luke knew it wasn’t true, that if his father had ever been that paragon of virtue, that time had long since passed and so had the hero. His father was Darth Vader, the murderer he had loathed for the last two years.

Yet twenty years’ devotion couldn’t be overthrown with a single revelation. He couldn’t seem to separate them out, to excise the false father from his consciousness, and see only the monster. Instead, everything just muddled together in his head, until _Father_ meant all of it: victim, tyrant, Jedi, Dark Lord, hero, villain.

Vader and sentimentality didn’t mix well at the best of times. Right now, with that strange, effortless connection constantly running between them, Luke’s confused idea of his father was worse than foolish -- it was dangerous, and to more than him. He knew it, but that knowledge changed nothing. He remained as bewildered as ever.


	7. Chapter 7

The moment that Alderaan was destroyed, Leia Organa became the most powerful symbol the Rebellion possessed.

Before, she had been a spy, saboteur, and sometime leader. Afterwards, she held no rank or position other than _Princess Leia_. It didn’t matter -- or rather, it mattered immensely. It made her the face of the Rebellion, and ensured that the assorted generals and admirals deferred to her in everything but where she went, what she wore, and how she lived.

She gave commands, and others chose her clothes. Leia considered it an eminently satisfying exchange, except when the symbolizing went too far.

“I like white,” she said, most of her attention focused on her datapad. Rieekan’s report looked promising, she thought, scrolling down while Susrin Atral prattled on about her wardrobe. He wasn’t part of the military leadership, but a former representative in the Senate. They hadn’t quite known what to do with him, when he first defected; in the end, they’d put him to work managing the Rebellion’s image, and therefore Leia’s.

“Princess, you are the _daughter of Alderaan_ ,” Atral said impatiently. “You need -- ”

Leia glanced up, her hands tightening on the datapad. Her eyes were very cold. “I am the daughter of Padmé Amidala and Bail Organa,” she said.

He gulped and changed the subject.

After she returned from Cloud City, however, the arrangement became considerably less satisfactory. The high command seemed convinced that Imperial agents were crouching in the brush at all times, ready to capture her if she were left alone for a single minute. Not that she was ever alone, because Han -- well, he’d always mocked her rank, but the last thing he’d said to Chewie was exactly what everyone else was saying now.

 _The princess -- you have to take care of her._

Chewbacca had taken it to heart. As soon as he returned from Tatooine, he began accompanying her everywhere she went and only reluctantly refrained from guarding her bed at night.

“I’ll be fine,” Leia said, trying to keep her frustration out of her voice. She wasn’t irritated with Chewie, and he’d had to put up with enough of her temper tantrums already. “I’ve got droids and my blaster and I doubt there are stormtroopers lurking under my window. Besides, it’s creepy to have someone watching me while I sleep -- I wouldn’t get any rest that way.”

Nevertheless, Chewie’s protection was apparently insufficient. She couldn’t so much as leave her chambers without the escort of three guards, each armed to the teeth. If she’d ever actually been attacked, they would only have been in her way.

She never was, of course, because she never left the base. The Rebellion still sent diplomats on missions to meet potential allies, of course, but Leia hadn’t received any assignments since her return. She made tactical decisions, she delivered orders, she looked tragic, she passed on Luke’s clairvoyant intelligence reports, and all of this, apparently, made her too important to be risked in anything else.

Leia bit back her frustration and forced herself to think rationally. She was good at diplomacy, certainly, but others could do it nearly as well. Nobody else could be Princess Leia, heiress to the graveyard of Alderaan.

 _I don’t deserve it._ The thought had crept into her mind almost unawares. But it was true. What had she done for her people? True, it wasn’t her fault that Alderaan had been destroyed; Tarkin had just needed an excuse. He’d told her that much, and he’d done it even when there wasn’t an excuse. No, it wasn’t her fault.

Afterwards, they’d been on the run all the way to Hoth -- she’d looked for Alderaanians when she could, but that was infrequent at best. Then the Empire had attacked and she’d escaped to Cloud City -- some escape! -- and come back and . . . there hadn’t been time for anything but coordinating efforts and foiling the likes of Jerjerrod. She could only begin to guess how many had been off-planet at all, let alone who they were.

Staying with the Rebellion, fighting the Empire - that was the best thing she could do for her fellow Alderaanians. She knew it. She _couldn’t_ do anything more than she was already doing. Still, when people talked as if she alone had suffered from Alderaan’s destruction, made her the sole symbol of it, she couldn’t help but think of the however-many millions of Alderaanians scattered across the galaxy, and how little she deserved to claim any kind of sovereignty over them.

Then, of course, she went back to work.

They were expecting an influx of refugees today -- political prisoners that Luke’s latest vision had helped locate. (She imagined what the Leia Organa of five years ago would have thought of that sentence, and almost laughed aloud.) If everything went well, they should be here by mid-afternoon, and naturally Leia intended to greet them.

Everything _did_ go well, for once -- Threepio expressed some astonishment, and then, as if half-expecting a response, looked at the air next to him. That afternoon, Leia stood between Rieekan and Madine in her old regalia, hair coiled over her ears. The robes hung loosely on her frame -- she’d lost weight during her flight to, and stay at, Cloud City, and never quite gained it back. Atral tightened her belt and insisted it didn’t matter.

The newly-liberated prisoners arrived only a little later than expected. Leia recognized them more from her files than from the Senate, but it sufficed; she nodded and smiled and called them by name, and they seemed gratified. Then the captain ran up the ramp and escorted a woman down -- a woman who they all knew on sight, though none of them had expected to find her in this prison, or indeed, alive at all.

Seven years ago, Mon Mothma of Chandrila had been one of the twenty-six senators who founded the Rebellion. The other twenty-five were all dead now; the last of them had died with Alderaan, and passed his mantle onto his daughter.

The generals stared at her in near-disbelief.

“Senator Mothma,” said Leia, and bowed respectfully.

Mothma’s smile was reserved but kind, and her reciprocal bow as deep as Leia’s.

“Senator Organa,” she replied.

 

* * *

 

 

In the week that followed Shmi’s visit, Luke did his best to put his incomprehensible relatives out of his mind, with varying success. Even his failures, however, didn’t seem to impede his increasing control. The Force spread out around him in vast, convoluted, crisp lines. He used it so constantly now that it was less trouble to balance his mundane sight with that granted to him by the Force, than to spend a day detaching himself from it.

Detachment, he thought, was not one of his strong points. Yoda, however, assured him that it was not necessary in this case. He would even grow accustomed to the strange double-vision in time.

Then, of course, he told him to continue his exercises -- more clairvoyance, today.

“Keep your focus on the present,” Yoda instructed him. “Other places, other people. Not other times.”

“But I -- ” Luke snapped his mouth shut before his master could glare at him. “Yes, Yoda.”

He could send his mind drifting across the galaxy. Something would come; it always did. But without any guiding impulse from him, it was usually something he would have much rather not seen. Luke tried to think of something, anything, to focus his sight on. Little of late had drawn his attention from his legacy and his training.

He’d worried about the Rebellion, naturally, just in a vague, general way. Well, and Leia, but she could take care of herself.

The future tugged at him, and he firmly suppressed it. There was that Imperial officer, of course, the one foolhardy enough to cross --

 _Vader stood in front of the only viewscreen in the room, blocking out the stars. Strangely, Luke couldn’t sense him -- not any more than usual, at least._

 _Well, not so strangely. He wasn’t there._

 _“Luke Skywalker,” said Vader._

 _Luke started. **I’m not here** , he reminded himself. **I’m not here. I’m not here.**_

 _Vader turned from the window to face an Imperial officer. The same officer, Luke realized, that he had seen before -- the one who had defied Vader’s orders to look for him._

 **_Oh, no._ **

_With a sinking feeling, Luke remembered Yoda’s conviction that there was no possible danger from this man. The man himself, however, didn’t seem to have lost a scrap of his previous assurance._

 _“My Lord,” he said smoothly, “there seems to have been a misunderstanding. I’m sure -- ”_

 _“Spare me your futile excuses, Lieutenant,” said Vader. “My commands in respect to Skywalker were quite clear. There has been no misunderstanding.”_

 _“I -- ”_

 _“You defied my orders,” Vader said, his voice so calm that anyone with a modicum of intelligence could tell that murderous rage simmered just beneath it. “I suggest you explain why.”_

 _Janren looked surprised. “Eleven million credits,” he said, his shrug very nearly insolent._

 _Vader, to his son’s surprise, did not kill him on the spot, but simply said, “So the Emperor has offered a reward for his capture? Fascinating,” in a tone of supreme disinterest._

 _The redundancy seemed as odd as his evident abstraction. He didn’t seem to much care what he said, or what the other man did. Yet his manner, as far as Luke could read it, was intent and focused, as if he were listening to something else, as if he were . . ._

 _As if he were probing the officer’s mind. Luke would have shuddered, if his body weren’t back in the swamp. Of course. Vader really **didn’t** care what Janren said; he just wanted him thinking about it._

 _“I suppose,” said Janren indifferently._

 _“Have you mentioned the lead to anyone?”_

 _Janren laughed. “So someone else could claim my reward? No.” He paused just long enough to make Luke wonder if he perhaps had a death wish. “Sir.”_

 _Vader stared down at the man, who permitted his lip to curl slightly._

 _“Lord Vader, I -- ”_

 _“Did you expect, Lieutenant,” Vader said idly, “to capture a Jedi Knight with nothing more than a blaster?”_

 _“A frothing lunatic, you mean?” His eyes landed on Vader’s lightsaber and whatever small wits he possessed reasserted themselves. He backtracked. “I am a fully trained officer in the Imperial Starfleet, my lord, and Skywalker is only a boy. Jedi or not.”_

 _“Or not?” Vader repeated. “Do you doubt that he is a Jedi?”_

 _The officer’s sneering expression gained a hint of bewilderment.  “Er -- no? That is -- I assumed, Lord Vader, that you would have had him interrogated and executed earlier, if he were more than a lucky charlatan.”_

 _“Luke Skywalker is a Jedi,” Vader told him, intent once more. “The only Jedi that I have permitted to live. In your anxiety to receive a few million credits for his capture, did you ever stop to wonder why I forbade you to do so? Why, of all the Jedi in the galaxy, I have spared this one boy?”_

 _Janren stared at him. For the first time, he seemed to suspect that unexplained tolerance, from Vader, was unlikely to be beneficial to his career. His brow furrowed._

 _Vader, Luke suspected, was smiling. “You know, of course, that, I, too, am a Jedi.”_

 _“Well, yes, but not -- ”_

 _“I have been one for most of my life,” Vader said, then added thoughtfully, “though for much of that time, I was known by another name. Anakin Skywalker.”_

 _The officer’s confusion gave way to horror. He backed so far into his chair that it started to teeter backwards. “Lord Vader, I -- I didn’t realize -- I never thought -- ”_

 _One of Vader’s gloved hands tightened into a fist. “Your petty greed would have endangered my son,” he snarled, no longer bothering with even superficial calm. **“My son.”** He lifted his other hand._

 _Janren swallowed, then seemed to recover himself, his expression settling back into a sneer. “You can’t touch me. I’m not a nobody like Needa,” he said, throwing his head back defiantly. “I’m related to the Emperor himself! Senator Amidala was my aunt. You can’t -- ”_

 _“No, she wasn't,” said Vader, and crushed his throat._

Luke couldn’t bring himself to detail his vision to Yoda, and certainly not to Obi-Wan. Thankfully, they had judged his abilities sufficiently advanced for him to meditate by himself, in whatever fashion, and place, he wished. He returned to the tree he’d collapsed by, when he’d contacted Leia the week before, and meditated while perched on one of the giant exposed roots.

On the first day, nothing came of it, but on the second, Shmi materialized before he’d even closed his eyes.

“Good morning, Luke.”

“Hello, Grandmother,” he said, trying to look less desperately relieved than he felt. “How -- how are you? Um -- ”

“The same as usual,” said Shmi mildly. She gave him a sharp glance. “What is wrong? I can tell something has happened.”

Luke hesitated. It occurred to him, belatedly, that while she clearly had some idea of what had followed her death, for both their family and the galaxy, she might not know exactly what had become of Vader. If so, she didn’t need to know. After all, however monstrous he might be, he was her son. That would make everything different for her.

 _For everyone_ , he thought, feeling almost as if it were _his_ throat seizing up.

Shmi lowered her eyes. “It’s Anakin, isn’t it?”

“I . . .”

“I’ve seen what he’s done, Luke,” she said, pain flitting across her face. “I doubt -- I doubt anything could much surprise me, now.”

“I thought you couldn’t go near him,” said Luke, surprised.

Shmi’s mouth twitched. “He commands Star Destroyers. I haven’t needed to go near him to see what he does.”

“Oh.”

She turned her gaze back to him. “Has he hurt you again?”

“Hurt . . .?” he repeated, puzzled, then remembered his hand. “Oh! No. I haven’t seen him. I mean -- I have, but not in person.”

“A vision, then?”

Luke nodded miserably. He paused only a moment more, then told her everything he’d seen. The pain on her face didn’t disappear, but it . . . dissipated, a little.

“Oh, _Anakin_ ,” she said, in exactly the same tone that Biggs’ mother had used when she found his beetle collection.

“It’s awful,” said Luke, a little more weakly than he’d have liked, “but -- ”

Shmi gave him a steady look. He groaned, leaning slightly forward and letting his upper arms rest on his thighs. He suppressed the urge to hide his face behind his hands.

“I’m not sorry,” he admitted in a whisper. “Father -- he shouldn’t have done it. I know that. That man deserved to be demoted -- or fired -- or even court-martialed. Not murdered. I should be horrified. But I’m not. I’m _glad_ Father choked him and I’m glad he’s dead!”

He made himself glance at her, half-expecting her to back away, or just to look at him with the affectionate wariness he remembered from his childhood. She was a ghost, he reminded himself. He couldn’t hurt her. And he couldn’t just _slip_ into the Dark Side without noticing. Besides, if he had, she wouldn’t be able to approach him.

Instead, Shmi reached out a hand and then, with a sigh, drew it back. “Luke, you are not responsible for your father.”

His mind quailed at the thought. Of course he wasn’t responsible for Vader! Vader had chosen to make himself a curse since before Luke could remember. But a part of him, the part that felt that underlying _sameness_ between them, knew that it was his responsibility to voice the qualms that Vader wouldn’t let himself feel, to disapprove of his excesses, to detach himself from the galaxy that Vader loved, as much as he loved anything.

“It’s not my fault he does things like this,” Luke said, “and I know it’s not my job to stop him, but I think it’s my -- my task, to be everything he’s not. To . . . make up for him, in a way. And I can’t do that if I’m cheering him on!”

“Your task -- ” Shmi paused, tilting her head. “I cannot tell you where your destiny lies, Luke, but I will say that you must be as wary of losing your humanity as of falling to the Dark Side.”

“It’s only human to be relieved that one less person is trying to kill me, you mean?” Luke swung his legs back and forth, thinking. “But I’m a Jedi. I have to be better than that. I should prize all life, I should -- ”

“Perhaps,” said Shmi, “you should consider just why you were pleased to see this man die.”

Luke flinched. Still, he cast his mind back obediently enough.

“I _was_ horrified, at first,” he said slowly. “It was only when . . . I already knew he was unpleasant, and I didn’t want him dead, but -- it’s one thing to believe someone’s hunting you out of misguided idealism. I can understand something like that. It’s a lot harder to mind somebody getting killed when that person was ready to sell you into torment for a small fortune. You understand?”

“Certainly -- I cannot say I felt any grief when I heard that one of my crueller masters had died.” She smiled at his horrified look. “I knew nothing other than slavery for fifteen years. I have been bought and sold more times than I can count. But not you. You are free.”

“And Father,” he began, and stopped. When he thought of Darth Vader, many words crossed his mind. _Free_ was not one of them. Luke swallowed and continued. “Not minding isn’t the same as enjoying it, though.”

She nodded her agreement.

Luke sat in silence for a few minutes, letting realization creep up on him, settling in all the cracks and edges he’d been careful to keep blank, always pulling himself back before he went too far. Except he’d gone much further than too far this time.

“It wasn’t him,” he said, almost to himself. “His being my enemy and a horrible person besides -- that didn’t make me hate him, it just made me not care what happened to him. I was glad because _Father_ hated him.”

Luke couldn’t bear to look at his grandmother’s kind, gentle face. _How did we come from you?_

“Oh, Luke,” said Shmi.

“I shouldn’t -- it shouldn’t matter,” he said. His tongue felt thick and difficult. “I’ve known for awhile that he . . . values me. As something of his. Of course he wouldn’t let someone else kill me.”

“We all know there was never any danger of that,” Shmi told him, and she didn’t bother drawing her hand back. Perhaps it was because she was touching the prosthetic, but the brush of her fingers over his didn’t feel unsettling at all. Just . . . insubstantial. “Did Anakin think there was?”

Luke hesitated. At most, Vader had seemed darkly amused at the thought. “No,” he admitted.

She gave a satisfied nod. “Luke, your father is -- deeply flawed. We both know that. We know he has not been properly himself in almost twenty years. But he has never been foolish. If you were not in any real danger, and this lieutenant had no intentions of passing his suspicions on to anyone, then Anakin must have known that his intervention was completely unnecessary.”

“Well,” said Luke, “I don’t imagine he takes defiance well. And I could sense . . . something. I mean, apart from the rage and hatred and so on. Just like on Cloud City. But I wasn’t really there this time, so -- ”

His brows drew together. He still remembered those last few minutes in the carbon-freezing chamber with greater clarity than anything he had experienced since. Vader’s looming presence battering against his mind. Luke’s fury rising with his terror, transforming from weakness into strength, into a rush of power that had him burying his father’s lightsaber in Vader’s shoulder before he knew what had happened.

That, he thought, was why he’d never been that outraged by the loss of his hand. He hadn’t drawn on the Dark Side for more than a few seconds, but -- well.

Luke put aside the agony of the red lightsaber slicing through his wrist, put aside his panic and despair. What had he sensed? The usual Dark Side cocktail of aggression, rage, and hatred. Not remorse, certainly. Perhaps dismay. And something else, something that hadn’t done more than niggle at his mind at the time, but now, with the advantage of distance, seemed woefully out of place.

Indecision? From Vader?

Yes. For a moment, there had been a sense of conflict, the dark presence forcing itself towards some cold, bleak necessity, then swinging violently away, into a sort of variegated confusion. Luke had never felt anything like that necessity, though of course he had no doubt what it was, but the other, that jumble of pride, fierce attachment, ambition, loyalty, vigilance, and the Force only knew what else -- he knew exactly what that was.

 _That_ was what he had sensed again yesterday, distant but unmistakably the same. And this time he had half-recognized it, enough to feel distinct enjoyment at the sight of his father acting on it -- even if that action was reprehensible, to say the least -- but it couldn’t . . . he wasn’t supposed to --

Luke lifted astonished eyes to his grandmother’s. She nodded.

“It’s impossible,” he said helplessly, more to himself than to her. Shmi lifted her translucent hand to his cheek.

“Luke, your father loves you,” she said. “He will remember it before the end.”

 _Promise?_ he thought childishly, remembering the small boy he had been, staring at the sky and dreaming of his father. Luke smiled at himself, but he suspected he still seemed about five. “You’re sure? How?”

“The Force is strong in our family,” said Shmi, her smile very nearly mischievous. “I am quite sure."


	8. Chapter 8

“Maybe I should just spend the rest of the day posing dramatically,” said Leia. “Or wait, I could get tears tattooed my face. Then they wouldn’t need me to do _anything at all._ ”

“My programming indicates that would be an ineffective tactic,” Threepio said. “The overwhelming majority of organics will respond only to water-based tears. I feel it is highly unjust and irrational, but . . .”

Chewbacca snarled something.

“Well, really!”

“Both of you, just -- ” Leia began, then rubbed her forehead. She’d only managed to get this modicum of privacy by claiming a headache and retreating to her chambers with Threepio and Chewbacca. The useless guards had stationed themselves just outside her door.

Leia didn’t think Chewie and Threepio disliked one another, but without anyone else to vent their -- singular frustrations on, they seemed to be constantly at odds. She couldn’t blame them.

Threepio retreated to the corner.

“I beg your pardon, Princess Leia,” he said, all wounded dignity. “I only wished to be of assistance.”

“Don’t we all -- for all the good it does,” Leia snapped, then dropped her head into her hands. “Gods, I’m acting like a child. I’m twenty-two. I’m a princess; I’ve been a _senator_. I should be better than this.”

The droid took a cautious step forward. Chewbacca snapped at him, as quietly as he ever managed.

“I was the first to say that Mon should lead us now. She has far more experience than I do with everything except blasters. She _started the Rebellion._ She doesn’t just deserve to be in charge, she really is the best person. She’s much more charismatic than I ever was, too -- she makes people _want_ to follow her.”

“Chewbacca says you would make a far superior Wookiee chieftain,” said Threepio.

Leia laughed. “Thank you, Chewie. Unfortunately, I’m not a Wookiee.” She kicked a pillow back against the wall, eyes narrowing. “Or a chieftain.”

“I understand that it is an extremely dangerous occupation. We are much better off here.”

“I don’t mind danger,” Leia said impatiently. “But I haven’t spent this many years risking my life to fight the Empire only to sit around reading reports. Anyone can do this! It’s just a sop to my vanity. Something to keep the precious princess from running off and getting herself captured. As if I would ever give up the Rebellion’s secrets to the Empire. Vader himself couldn’t get anything out of me. _Tarkin_ couldn’t, and Vader was nothing to him.”

She fell silent.

Threepio’s eyes flashed uncertainly. After several minutes, Chewie gave a low, interrogative growl.

“Chewbacca asks why you are not chieftain of your people, Princess. He suggests a significant remainder must have survived.” Threepio paused a moment. “In fact, approximately three million, six hundred fifty-nine thousand citizens of Alderaan would have been off-planet at the moment of its destruction. Under the Act of -- ”

“I _know._ ” Leia stared ahead, just as she had done on the Death Star, dry-eyed, chest burning. “I found some of them, as many as I could. But I’m not a one-person army like Vader, like a Jedi. All my resources have been confiscated by the Emperor. I can’t do anything for them but fight the Empire, so that’s what I’ve been doing.” Her jaw tightened. “But now -- I can’t just sit here and be a _symbol_ of resistance while my people, everyone’s people, are out there actually resisting.”

“My records do suggest that over ninety-five point nine one eight six percent of known Alderaanians are also known members of the Rebellion, or notably sympathetic,” Threepio admitted. “If one includes colonies of Alderaanian origin, the number rises to -- ”

Chewbacca’s head jerked up. Leia, who had been speaking more to herself than to him, gave him a quizzical glance.

“He’s talking nonsense,” Threepio said. “Chewbacca, a Wookiee colony is extremely unlikely to have originated from Alderaan.”

“I didn’t know the Wookiees had any colonies,” Leia said, still occupied with her own thoughts. _We’ve had hardly any Imperial attacks lately_ , she told herself. _Even though we’ve been able to strike against them more often, thanks to Luke, and all the new recruits. It’s the best possible time --_

“Only one,” reported Threepio. “He says that several generations ago, a Wookiee expedition discovered a system at the fringes of the Republic, with two habitable worlds. One, a small planet, was already occupied by what appeared to be humans, but the other, a forest moon, had been left untouched. The Wookiees settled the moon and have lived there ever since, though they retained contact with their homeworld, and -- ”

Leia, glad enough to be distracted from her troubles, raised her eyebrows. “What _appeared_ to be humans?”

“Clones,” said Threepio. “They were eradicated during the wars, but the Emperor had too many other concerns to bother with the system. It is technically within the boundaries of the Empire, but only barely. Chewbacca’s cousins have not seen any Imperials since the wars.” He paused while Chewie added something. “Even then, they had no trouble from them.”

A jolt of excitement pulsed through her. “You mean there’s an uninhabited planet just sitting there? And it can support human life?”

Chewbacca’s enthusiastic reply needed no translation.

“And you never mentioned this before?”

“He believed that you would have already purchased a planet, had you required one,” said Threepio.

“One does not simply _purchase_ planets!” She grimaced. “Especially if one has no money.”

“He says -- ”

“Never mind.” Leia sprang up, smoothing down her shirt. “If there’s any way I . . . you two, come with me. We have a fight to pick.”

 

* * *

 

 

The past, Luke quickly realized, was by far the most difficult to grasp. It came no more naturally to him than the present had, and even once he managed to turn his mind’s eye back, the images were as fleeting and incoherent as anything he’d seen in the future. Finally, he did manage to catch something reasonably concrete, and it was only a middle-aged man -- a general or perhaps a moff -- leering at a dark-haired woman in senatorial robes, her face concealed behind a mask of white paint.

 _“My dear Senator Amidala,” he said, and Luke’s mind rang -- he’d heard that name before, just a few days . . ._

 _A few days ago. This was Janren’s aunt. Well, his not-aunt, if Vader were right, but the woman through whom he’d claimed relation to the Emperor. Someone Anakin Skywalker had known, too -- well enough to recall who her nephews were and weren’t, when he’d forgotten so much else._

 _“Moff Tarkin,” she returned evenly._

 _Tarkin? The governor of the Death Star? Why would Luke see him? -- flirting with some cousin of the Emperor’s, no less?_

 _“I was shocked to hear of the recent attempt on your life, Senator,” Tarkin said. Luke felt a slight stir of curiosity. Assassination attempts might be interesting. “In such circumstances, is it really wise for you to stand in the open like this, with no protection?”_

 _“I am not unprotected,” Amidala said, her flat voice revealing nothing. “My friends have arranged for a bodyguard to accompany me. He should be arriving presently.”_

 _“Presently? How unconscionably negligent -- why, anyone with a blaster could abduct you with no one the wiser.” His hand closed over her small wrist. “Even without a blaster.”_

 _Amidala didn’t flinch, but simply regarded him with cool, unfriendly dark eyes, reminding Luke of no one so much as Leia._

 _“Not quite,” said a dry, female voice from behind him. Tarkin started, whirling around._

 _The voice belonged to a slight, fair, sharp-featured young woman. Next to her stood a still younger man, at once tense and abstracted, his face half-turned away. He, too, had blond hair, though his approached light brown where hers was pale. Both wore Imperial uniforms and wary expressions._

 _Luke would have started himself, if he could. At first glance, the man’s profile was **his** \-- no, it couldn’t be. Tarkin had been elderly when he’d died, not fifty-something, and tall as he was, the young man towered over him. And now he could see numerous differences in the halfway-glimpsed face. The resemblance was unmistakable -- but nothing more than resemblance._

 _“Take your hand off the senator, Moff Tarkin,” the young man said, turning his head to look at Tarkin straight-on. The face was, of course, the same one Luke had seen on his uncle and aunt’s mantle, perhaps five years older, while the voice was lighter and clearer than he had ever heard it, but still a little deeper than his own._

 _“You would do better to look for those who intend real harm,” Tarkin replied, his eyes cold, but he removed his hand. “I presume you are Senator Amidala’s new guards?”_

 _“I’m Lieutenant Nellith of the Royal Fleet of Alderaan,” the woman said, “and this is -- ”_

 _“Skywalker,” said Anakin curtly. “The same. Did you have any other business with the senator?”_

 _Tarkin paused, then smiled, bowed, and took his leave._

 _“I’m sorry to be such an inconvenience,” Amidala told them, her voice warming. “I told Bail I didn’t need bodyguards, but -- ” She gestured._

 _Anakin laughed. “Getting shot would take the wind out of that argument.”_

 _“Getting shot **at** ,” Amidala corrected with a smile. “I ducked. However, thank you. I’m very grateful to you both for your time.”_

 _“There’s no need to thank us,” said Nellith. “We’re soldiers. When Viceroy Organa says ‘go,’ we just ask ‘how far?’ Well, I do, and I’ll keep Skywalker here in line. Following orders has never been one of his strong points.”_

 _Anakin gave her an exasperated glance. “You needn’t be concerned, Senator,” he said. “For some entirely inexplicable reason, Arissa is under the delusion that she is amusing. In fact, I always comply with my orders.”_

 _“Creatively,” Arissa told him, and wrinkled her nose. “I had been going to say, **Anakin** , that you’re also the best shot and the best pilot in all of Imperial Starfleet, but . . .”_

 _“I can’t say obedience is one of my strengths, either,” Amidala said lightly. “I’m guessing you’ve worked together before?”_

 _“Occasionally.”_

 _“Very frequently,” said Anakin, with a long-suffering look._

 _“Excellent. Now, personally, I think this is a lot of fuss about nothing -- ” Arissa’s eyebrows shot up; Luke’s would have too, if they were here -- “but you should know that there is some small danger of attack on the way to Theed. If you would like to request a reassignment, I will understand perfectly.”_

 _Arissa and Anakin blinked. Then Arissa’s mouth trembled and she turned away, so quickly that Luke caught a glimpse of a narrow silver cylinder amongst her weaponry. A lightsaber._

 _“That should not be necessary,” said Anakin, biting down hard on his lip._

 _They were both Jedi Knights -- Jedi Knights serving a Jedi sympathizer and future founder of the Rebellion, and assigned to protect an . . . Imperial Senator? A kinswoman of the Emperor, no less. Amidala, Luke thought, was the only thing that didn’t fit in the picture._

 _With a sinking feeling, he remembered Obi-Wan telling him how the carnage and loss they’d suffered in the Clone Wars had changed everything. This Anakin, at worst a little formal and unconciliating, wasn’t just a world away from Vader; he was a world away from the scarred, broken Anakin Skywalker Luke had heard about, too._

 _His wife had been one of the Jedi who died in the wars._

 _Luke stared at the Jedi-soldier in front of him, almost as absurdly youthful as Anakin Skywalker. They trailed after Senator Amidala, Arissa trying to scowl up at him, and then absently rubbing her neck. Luke sympathized; she was over a foot shorter than Anakin, barely taller than the tiny senator. Her nose, he noticed irrelevantly, was shorter too -- small and turned-up where Anakin’s was straight -- and her mouth wider too. Was she --_

 _“Once you’re done flirting with Senator Amidala,” Arissa said under her breath, “we need to come up with a better plan to protect her.”_

 _“Once I’m what?” Anakin pushed his untidy hair out of his eyes. “Arissa, I’m not flirting with the senator.”_

 _“Oh, as if you’d know,” Arissa snapped, and hurried forward._

 _ **Definitely my mother** , Luke thought --_

\-- and returned to his body.

“Ow,” he said. He was lying flat on his back in the mud. His head seemed to have landed on a rock at some point, and Yoda and Obi-Wan had wandered over to peer at him.

“Successful, you have been,” Yoda announced.

“Sometimes I think you have very strange ideas about what qualifies as success,” Luke said. Then he grimaced and covered his face. “Obi-Wan, can you . . . sparkle less? I don’t think I can handle any more eldritch lights in my eyes.”

He obliged, fading to a dull glow. “What did you see?”

Luke sat up and gingerly rubbed his head. “My mother, I think.” He paused. “Father too, of course. And this Imperial Senator who seemed . . . strangely kind. Viceroy Organa sent them to protect her after she almost got shot, though she didn’t seem to think it was necessary.”

“Ah,” said Obi-Wan. “Padmé Amidala.”

“You knew her? The Emperor’s . . . cousin?”

“Third or fourth, nothing important,” Obi-Wan said dismissively. “And I could hardly have avoided her acquaintance, even had I wished to. She was your father’s best friend -- and married to mine.”

Yoda made a scoffing sound. Luke felt no surprise at this; friendship was among the many things that his master disapproved of.

“Yours?” He tried to remember who Obi-Wan had known, besides his father.

“Bail was . . . perhaps overzealous when it came to Amidala’s safety,” said Obi-Wan. “Particularly at that stage, when he remained convinced that carrying her books to the Senate was the appropriate way to express his affection.”

It took Luke’s brain a moment to catch up. “Bail? Bail Organa? Leia’s father?” His eyes widened. “Senator Amidala was _Leia’s mother?_ ”

Obi-Wan gave a complacent smile. “The Force binds our lives in unusual ways.”

“No kidding,” Luke muttered.

This foresight -- or rather, hindsight -- did, of course, grow easier with practice, as they all had. After several more attempts, he could reach into the past and feel reasonably certain that he would find something there. The visions became less overwhelming, less absorbing.

Still, he had less control over it than he did over either of the others. His visions of the past were never so irrelevant as those of the present often were, but they were only roughly shaped by what Luke himself sought in them. Perhaps his own scruples got in the way; this seemed more invasive, for some reason. The others -- well, this was a war. He had to use what tools he had at hand, and the information he dredged out of the ether helped.

The past, though _\--_ _it’s done and over with. What good does it do to know that my father and Leia’s mother were friends once? Amidala’s dead now and her memory obviously didn’t stop him, any more than my mother’s did._

Even Shmi didn’t have any useful advice. She’d been alive then, and Anakin had visited her whenever he could, but he never spoke of his other life. Her own clairvoyance was, and had always been, focused firmly on the future.

He’d never really minded that Yoda had watched _him_. But it didn’t seem right to peer into others’ pasts, when no strategic value could come from it. He knew that, at fourteen, Leia’s mother had been forced to tranform from the shy, thoughtful Princess of Theed into fearless Queen Amidala, that then-Prince Palpatine had, for his own unfathomable reasons, taken the girl under his wing. What did it matter? If Leia didn’t know that her mother had been the Emperor’s favoured protégée, Luke had no intentions of telling her so.

He’d seen Obi-Wan grieving over the students he lost in the war -- all but the one he’d lost most thoroughly. He’d seen his daring, cool-headed mother slaughtering clones and then curling into a corner, grey-faced and twitchy, arms wrapped tightly around herself. Well, now he knew how _she_ lived with what she’d done: she hadn’t. She just endured. A valuable life lesson, and not one he needed to learn from invading a dead woman’s past.

And most of all, there was his father. Obi-Wan had already told him how the war had broken Anakin Skywalker. Did he really need to see it, too?

 _“Mother? Mother, no -- no, no, not -- ”_

 _It was a woman who found him there, half-crouching. For one moment, Anakin simply looked at her over Shmi’s corpse._

 _“This is my mother,” he said, in slow, careful Jawa, and added, “Your tribe will pay for this. But it need not be you -- not the women and children. Find the others and leave this place. I will not pursue you.”_

 _She fled, screeching as she went, and Luke could hear the warriors pounding towards the tent where they’d tortured Shmi. Something -- not a smile -- curved Anakin’s lips._

 _He lit his lightsaber._

“Why do I keep _seeing_ these things?”

Shmi looked sympathetic. Luke had elected not to detail his latest vision to her.

“I am not certain,” she admitted. “It isn’t usual, not with such consistency. If I had to say, however, I would think that together, they form some kind of pattern, something you need to know -- or that you already do, but have not properly realized.”

“I haven’t been looking for them, no matter what Master Yoda says. I hate it, poking around in people’s lives like this, but Yoda insists I need to practice. And it doesn’t work if I don’t think of anything at all -- I’ve tried that.”

“Perhaps,” said Shmi, “you should poke around in _your_ life.”

Luke stared at her.

“You were taken too young to know of your early years, and I only saw you once, when Anakin brought you home to see us. You can never remember it -- but you could _see_ it. Surely your own life is your concern.”

It was stupid, but he’d never even thought of that. He felt like Pelsyric, carrying the planet-boulder on his shoulders, and then feeling it shrink into a pebble. Luke even found himself straightening his back.

“Ye-es,” he said, and then his voice quickened. “You’re right, Grandmother. I have a right to know that. Though it’s probably awful.” And if it wasn’t, that would just make it all the more tragically depressing. But still.

Next time, as Yoda lectured him about the necessity of control in all things and something about matrices and vergences that he still couldn’t quite follow, Luke nodded and propped his back against a tree.

“Just in case,” he said, rubbing the knot on his head. Yoda chortled, so Luke assumed he didn’t disapprove.

Instead of letting his thoughts drift to his parents, or Leia’s, or Obi-Wan or Yoda or Palpatine, Luke kept his mind firmly fixed on his own identity. _I am Luke Skywalker. I was born twenty Standard years ago --_

A baby was crying. It took Luke a moment to realize he’d already fallen into the past. Certainly, his proper body sat cross-legged on Dagobah, but he was _here_ , not merely a disembodied consciousness. A ghost, of sorts. Perhaps, he thought, trying to get his incorporeal legs moving, this was what it felt like for Shmi and Obi-Wan.

He walked, in some bemusement, towards the baby’s voice, and kept moving even when it felt silent, passing through doors and walls, until --

“He’s very small,” Obi-Wan said doubtfully, hovering over an elaborately carved cradle. Luke moved past him, and saw the baby -- _himself_ \-- asleep in the cradle, and then, over Obi-Wan’s shoulder, Anakin collapsing into a window-seat. He was younger than Luke had last seen him, his face lined from exhaustion, rather than strain.

“He is _six weeks old_ ,” said Anakin, yawning.

“Does he have a name?”

Anakin’s sleepy smile was unmistakably genuine. “Luke. Luke Skywalker. He's my son.”

“Well . . . yes.”

“Obi-Wan, I am a _father_.” He peered blearily at his mentor. “We are taking him home as soon as my leave gets cleared. Padmé is managing it. I will not be available for -- ” he yawned again -- “some time.”

Luke swallowed. Even though no one could see him, he turned away, and the room blurred, the walls shifting and spreading.

Anakin was standing at a window, his still-infant son in his arms. Something about the way he held himself, stiff and pained, like an old man, alarmed Luke even before his younger self began to cry.

“Mama -- ” Anakin began, his pale eyes wide and unseeing, “she’s -- she can’t be with us now.”

Luke’s screams escalated, and his tiny fists clutched at his father’s tunic. Anakin simply closed his eyes, pressing his face against the baby’s hair.

The adult Luke half-reached out, uncertain whether he were trying to comfort his younger self or his father, and his concentration wavered. The room lurched -- and then resettled, very little different from before, except in its complete lack of occupants. Luke sighed and made his way through his father’s apartments until he found someone.

“ -- discovered,” said Obi-Wan, weathered hands tight on the arms of his chair.

Anakin, who appeared to have an aversion to furniture, stood with his back to another window and Luke still in his arms. He didn’t look greatly different -- a little older, a little thinner, his expression concerned rather than devastated. Luke was perhaps a year old.

“It is certain, then?”

“Yes. I must leave immediately, or be executed.” Obi-Wan hesitated. “Every day is becoming more dangerous, Anakin, for any Jedi. No one would blame you if you left now -- ”

“No. My place is here.” Then he glanced down at Luke, babbling cheerfully at nothing in particular. He bit his lip.

Obi-Wan waited.

“I have constructed a new lightsaber, one more suited to my present responsibilities,” Anakin said abruptly. He reached inside his robe, and pulled out the weapon Luke had carried for so long. “I want Luke to have this one, when he is old enough.”

Obi-Wan’s brow furrowed. “Aren’t you going to give it to him yourself?”

Anakin simply looked at him, and held the lightsaber out.

 _Was he already planning to turn?_ Luke glanced from himself, yawning into his father’s shoulder, to Anakin, to Obi-Wan, and realized. _No. No, he wasn’t. He just didn’t didn’t think he’d live that long._

“Obi-Wan, w -- if I die,” said Anakin, regaining his usual brisk air, “I can trust that you will watch over my son?”

Obi-Wan’s fingers closed on the lightsaber. He nodded, apparently not trusting himself to speak.

“Buh. Buh-un,” said Luke. “Buh-un!”

Obi-Wan smiled sadly. “If something happens, where will I find him? Not here, I presume.”

“No. I am sending him home, to my brother and his wife,” Anakin said. “Owen is not fond of children, but for my sake, they will take care of Luke while I am otherwise occupied.”

Luke caught his breath. At last, he understood, at least in part. Father and Mother and Senator Amidala and Obi-Wan and Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Family. His family, and Leia’s, all bound up together -- that was what he’d been shown. Even as the past slid away from him and the swamp reformed before his eyes, he racked his mind for what it meant, for what he needed to do.

 _We are taking him home_ , Anakin had said, just after his birth, and a year later, _I am sending him home._

Family, Leia, home.

 _Home._ A surge of longing came over him, and he knew. Luke stared blankly at Yoda.

“I have to go home,” he said.


	9. Chapter 9

Vader had not been obliged to execute any subordinates since Lieutenant Janren, thankfully. The deaths of the inept or traitorous aroused no particular feeling in him, but it was inconvenient to keep replacing them.

His current crew’s competence, too, pleased him. The few mistakes that were made did not demand death. The officers had ceased their craven cowering, and several demonstrated courage and resourcefulness in the course of battle. More than once, Piett suggested minor alterations to Vader’s plans -- without presumption or insolence, of course, but without his usual twitching either.

Vader did not have it in him to be content, but he was satisfied.

Satisfied with them, at any rate. His own plans proceeded slowly. He had only the most general idea of his son’s location; his sense of the Force seemed to jump between sharp and murky, and when he did catch a clear image, it was only of somewhere damp and green. Following that hint could lead him anywhere.

 _Except Tatooine_ , he thought, and stilled. There was . . . something. Even through his clouded senses, he felt it. Something sudden, urgent. Something to do with Tatooine.

 _“Tatooine? It’s a desert planet in the Outer Rim, isn’t it? Binary suns?”_

 _Anakin made a vaguely affirmative sound, his eyes dropping to the table between them. Padmé’s hands, he noticed, were soft and unlined. He’d have known she came from wealth and water even if he hadn’t recognized her as Amidala._

 _“But isn’t it -- ”_

 _“Controlled by Hutts? Yes. They own everything except a few cities.”_

 _She was too canny a politician to miss his tone, and too sheltered a queen to understand it. **They own me. Did you know that, Senator?** he thought, and then, **No. I’m free. I’ve been free for years, and if I didn’t have family to visit, I’d never go back.**_

Vader angrily pushed the memory out of his mind. He hadn’t thought of the past so much in years -- hadn’t even remembered most of it with any clarity. It didn’t matter. He had no need to remember it. What was past was past, and could not be changed; the future was everything. Yet in the last few weeks, he found himself unable to prevent these fragments of memory from bleeding into his thoughts, as if --

It was of no consequence.

Still, the feeling of urgency persisted. The Force, his only true ally, drew his focus away from the vague sense of his son, narrowed it to their home planet, instead.

 _Home planet._ The phrase resonated oddly in his mind, but told him no more.

Mos Espa? He saw it, as clearly as the walls of his chamber, and felt nothing, not even familiarity. He’d been raised in this filthy city, but he didn’t remember -- yet that was nothing remarkable. He had been very young. His attention drifted north, past Mos Eisley, past --

The homestead. Home planet, homestead, home.

Impossible, he thought. There could be nothing of interest there. Nothing to lead him to his son, even if Luke had once lived there, as he had. Yet the Force told him to go home.

He did not question the Force, nor permit anyone else to do so. Providing Admiral Piett with specific instructions and no explanations -- which Piett had the sense not to expect -- Vader boarded his unmarked shuttle, and headed for Tatooine.

 

* * *

 

 

“I have to leave.”

It was the third time Leia had confronted the generals in the last week. She’d been more deferential at first.

Well, a little.

Mon Mothma, however, had never been present before. She glanced up, her usual inflexible composure shifting to mild surprise.

“To leave? Is there some emergency I have yet to hear of?”

“It was an emergency two years ago,” Leia said.

“Princess,” said General Madine, “You are too crucial to the Alliance to be risked on the word of a handful of Wookiee colonists. There is no evidence that this planet exists, and even if it does -- ”

Chewbacca growled. She crossed her arms, feeling slightly more daunting with seven feet of angry, bowcaster-wielding Wookiee behind her.

“Even if it does,” Madine repeated calmly, “locating and transporting several million Alderaanians to a remote planet is, at present, far too massive and dangerous an undertaking -- ”

Leia’s eyes narrowed. “You mean, it’s one thing to use the destruction of Alderaan as a rallying point for the Rebellion, but quite another to help real Alderaanians?”

“Would someone care to explain any of this?” Mothma asked, a thin sliver of impatience edging her voice.

“Oh, _gladly_ ,” said Leia. “I am apparently so valuable that I cannot be permitted to do anything of actual value. Or perhaps I read reports so brilliantly that a temporary absence would spell the end of the Rebellion.”

Madine looked long-suffering, and tired. “Princess, you know perfectly well that you are an irreplaceable symbol of what we’re fighting for. We cannot -- ”

“The galaxy doesn’t need to see my face every week to remember what happened to Alderaan. They’re not going to forget it if I disappear for a few months,” she snapped, slamming her hands on the table. “And if they do, then they can burn for all I care.”

Everyone stared at her. There was a moment of awkward silence, punctuated only by Chewie’s low, questioning growl. Then --

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Threepio. “It is a rhetorical device.”

“What is this about a planet?” Mothma asked. Leia quickly explained.

“Such an endeavour, even if it were possible, would be incredibly dangerous,” Madine said. “Princess Leia cannot be risked -- ”

“General Madine is correct,” Mothma said slowly, “that your goal would be difficult, at best, even without the war. Moreover, acting in secrecy would be counter-productive to gathering as many refugees as possible. If you directed the effort -- ”

“You might as well paint a target on your back,” said Madine.

“It would be highly dangerous,” Mothma conceded. “However, I must observe that the Alliance has always opposed conscription; indeed, that opposition was among our founding principles.”

Even Leia blinked. Rieekan and Madine, wending their way through the verbiage, looked puzzled.

Mothma sighed. “The princess is neither an officer nor a soldier,” she said, “but a private citizen. Regardless of considerations of policy, to compel her to remain against her explicitly stated wishes would be to defy everything the Alliance stands for.”

Leia almost flinched; Madine actually did so. She had never considered herself as a private citizen; in her own mind, she had no less obligation to the Rebellion than the pilots did, or Madine himself. So what if Madine was called _general_ and Leia, _princess?_ They all served after their own fashion.

And yet -- perhaps it wasn’t the same. The military, even one so comparatively informal as the Rebellion’s, had clear hierarchies and protocols. Leia had never felt herself bound by them. The politicians and the officers accommodated each other by mutual consent. She had never objected to her role as symbol and figurehead, not as long as she could fight the Empire as she saw fit.

But she couldn’t, now, and she’d withdrawn her consent. That should have meant something; she was not a soldier, sworn to obey her commanding officer. She was Princess Leia. _No one_ should have presumed --

Well.

The generals, to their credit, seemed shocked and dismayed. Clearly, it had never occurred to them to think of her as a civilian, serving the Rebellion at her own volition, free to leave whenever she wished it -- no more than it had occurred to Leia herself. She didn’t know if she were gratified or simply annoyed.

“I had not considered matters in this light,” Madine said, then nodded apologetically at Leia. “I beg your pardon, Princess. I must advise against this course of action in the strongest possible terms, but you are, of course, free to do as you will.”  

“Indeed,” said Mothma. “Now, let us be frank. Princess Leia, I have a high regard for your abilities, but operating entirely outside of the Alliance will sharply reduce any chance you have of achieving your objectives.”

Leia suppressed a grimace. “I know that. It’s why --” she began, and stopped. _It’s why I bothered asking for approval at all_ , she thought. _I didn’t expect it, but I didn’t expect that I’d be asking for **permission** , either._

“Your point, however, is a valid one. To ignore the plight of the Alderaanian people when there is a very real opportunity to help them, while exploiting their -- your -- tragedy is unacceptable. You do not have the resources to spearhead an expedition of this kind; I believe we can spare enough to, at the least, verify the position of this planet, and begin to locate refugees. If you are absolutely determined -- ”

“I am,” said Leia.

“Then it seems clear to me that we would all benefit from mutual cooperation. The Alliance is gathering more refugees than we can support, yet turning them away is inconceivable. A settlement on a largely unknown planet, almost beyond the reach of the Empire, would be of invaluable worth to us.”

Madine frowned. “With due respect, ma’am, the situation is hardly urgent.”

“I have found that it is preferable to address situations before they become urgent,” said Mothma. “Am I correct in assuming that we can easily provide one exploratory vessel and a small crew?”

“Yes, but the princess -- ”

“The princess has proven herself an able leader, and she has considerable experience in attracting support and sympathy,” Mothma said. “She is, in fact, better positioned to do so in this matter than perhaps anyone living, and certainly has more right.” She permitted herself a small smile. “And I am sure we can all agree that, if she must risk her life, it’s preferable that she do so with what small protection we can provide her, rather than with none at all.”

“Thank you,” Leia said dryly.

Mothma eyed her. “Princess Leia, I have no doubt that you will act in accordance with Alliance principles. I presume we can also expect you to exercise a reasonable degree of prudence?”

“Of course,” said Leia, and Mothma bowed, then gathered up her work and left the room.

Madine and Rieekan exchanged a glance.

“I have no desire to seem a villain to you, Princess,” Madine said, stiffer than ever. “You realize, I hope, that we have the highest possible opinion of your abilities, and greatly value your contributions to the Rebellion, past and present. We value your life for numerous reasons, few to do with public relations, and wished -- wish -- only to preserve it.”

She could be gracious in victory. Leia smiled up at him. “The galaxy has too many villains for me to add a friend to their number,” she said. “You’ve always been very kind to me and I _am_ grateful. I just can’t sit around when I could be doing something.”

Rieekan cleared his throat. “While we would all prefer to keep you as safe as possible, I know your father would have done everything in his power to help his people, as soon as he possibly could, and  fully supported you in doing so.” He paused. “I can do no less. Good luck, and may the Force be with you.”

“And you, Generals,” Leia said.

 

* * *

 

 

Yoda had been, to put it lightly, displeased about Luke’s second departure. However, he conceded that rushing off to rescue his friends in the face of prophesied gloom and disaster was not quite the same thing as leaving on the prompting of the Force.

“My friends aren’t even on Tatooine,” Luke said, then grimaced. “Well, Han. But I’m not ready to rescue him yet, I know that.”

Besides, he had no intention of facing down an entire criminal enterprise without a lightsaber. He still felt a little naked without his father’s, even with the power of the Force at his fingertips.

“Hm,” said Yoda. “Certain you are that it is the Force you feel?”

Luke was, but he let himself reach out for confirmation, and felt assurance all but settling into his bones. “Yes,” he said.

Perhaps Yoda felt it himself. In any case, he permitted Luke to go without further opposition, though he made him swear to continue his exercises on his journey. Luke, who suspected he would need all the preparation he could get, readily agreed.

“Master your visions, you must, before you can face your destiny,” Yoda told him. He didn’t have to say that Luke already had perfectly adequate control of his visions into the future and present, while he couldn’t so much as glance into the past without dropping his shields and anything else he happened to be maintaining with the Force. Or even with his mind -- he considered it an accomplishment when he didn’t collapse into the mud.

Now, he’d set his course for Tatooine, cleaned and oiled Artoo, stretched, meditated, sent every non-stationary object in the ship spinning in the air, told himself that he needed to be well-rested for whatever awaited him, and managed a few hours’ uneasy sleep. When he awoke, his nerves were clanging, and something felt -- _off_.

Luke sighed and returned to the pilot’s seat; it’d be hard to fall from here. He took a deep, cleansing breath, relaxed his grip on the arms of his chair, and dropped his hands into his lap, shutting his eyes.

There was no need to reach for the Force; it was already with him. He hadn’t bothered releasing it for over a week. Luke sent his mind wandering back, even as he realized what had changed. Not the Force itself, of course. Just his father’s presence, growing stronger, sharper, clearer as he approached his -- their? -- home planet. He was --

He was clambering onto a chair, his small fingers grasping the seat as he tried to hoist himself up. He lost his grip, fell to the ground, and scowled at the chair.

Someone laughed, the sound less amused than wearily relieved. Both Lukes turned, just in time to see Anakin stride through the doorway. He looked older -- not only than he’d been before, but older than he could possibly be.

Luke himself looked two or three, at most; Anakin couldn’t be much more than twenty-five, if that. His face, however, seemed anything but young -- pale and strained, tension etching itself into his forehead and around his mouth, deep shadows forming under his eyes. The eyes themselves were heavy-lidded with exhaustion, but nevertheless wide and alert. Too alert, perhaps.

The toddler Luke crossed his arms and his father strode over, lifting him up, onto the chair. One of the hands that had hoisted Luke’s younger self into the air was, he couldn’t help but notice, covered by a black leather glove.

The child’s pique transformed into glee. A disposable flimsi and blue stylus laid just in front of him, and presumably had been his goal all along; he grabbed the stylus and began to draw.

Anakin turned away, his bare hand half-covering his face. The fingers shook, his expression shifting to something other than mere anxiety. Luke instantly recognized it; he had, after all, seen it dozens of times.

Grief.

“Papa, look what I drawed!”

Anakin turned back. Luke, clearly not overburdened with artistic ability, held up the flimsi and beamed. His father and older self blinked.

“Who is this?” Anakin asked, pointing at the most human of the six figures.

“Aunt Beru, acourse,” said Luke, giggling. “This one you, Papa.”

Anakin rested one of his hands on Luke’s head, ruffling his hair. “I seem to be shorter than Aunt Beru.”

“Um,” Luke said, frowning at his picture. “I draw more legs!”

After he’d added six inches of scribbles to the figure, he pointed to the others. “See? Aunt Beru and you and Uncle Bail and Uncle Owen and Leia with the frowny face ‘cause she bossy, and Aunt Padmé.”

Anakin caught his breath.

“When she coming? She bring me a droid!” Luke burbled on, oblivious. “After later. She _said_.”

“Luke, she can’t -- ”

The syllables seemed to fall harshly into the air, even to Luke’s ears, and Anakin switched to another language, the one that Beru had used so often with Luke, when he was a child, and even later.

 _It was your grandmother’s_ , she’d said. _She taught it to all three of us, Anakin and then me and then Owen. Using her language is my way of remembering her._

“She can’t come. She’s very sorry.”

“Aunt Padmé gone ’way?” Luke asked, Basic and Alsaraic words mixing freely. It seemed evident that he understood both languages, even if he had yet to master either.

 _Aunt Beru didn’t teach me_ , he realized. _She kept me from forgetting._

“Yes, she’s -- she’s gone,” Anakin said. More to himself than to Luke, he murmured, “The Emperor’s favourite cousin and a _senator_ , and --”

He stalked over to the window, hands clasped behind his back. For several minutes, he simply watched the traffic straggling by. Luke kept twisting around to peer at him, his small face almost frightened.

Leia had told him of the brutality that had run rampant through the Empire of her childhood -- and his, it turned out. Towards the end of the war, her mother had been one of several politicians murdered in plain sight. No one had been safe. Not even an Imperial Senator.

The adult Luke regarded them both with growing horror. He didn’t remember his third birthday, but he knew it’d been at the homestead, after his father had --

“Papa?” Luke asked plaintively.

Anakin hesitated, then returned to the table, his steps slow and deliberate. He looked, if possible, even more haggard than before. His eyes were still wide and desperate, but there was something different there now -- a resignation, a sort of horrifying calmness, even as he knelt beside Luke’s chair and gazed at him with fierce affection.

The younger Luke’s lip trembled. The elder forced himself to breathe.

“Don’t worry, Luke,” Anakin said, stroking his son’s hair. “I know you’re scared, but it’s going to be fine. Papa’s going to make the galaxy safe for you.”

 _No_ , Luke thought wildly, _no, no, no_ , and _there are many ways of forgetting_ , his grandmother had said --

 _No._

Artoo gave an worried beep, sensors blinking up at him. Luke stared out the viewscreen; he’d only slumped a little in his seat.

“I’m all right,” he said, and scrubbed at his cheeks.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise. He’d already guessed as much, when Obi-Wan told him that his mother had died in the war. That he’d been there, with his father, and Anakin’s natural concern for him had twisted until it fed into his self-immolation. This wasn’t anything he hadn’t known.

Knowing, though, wasn’t the same as seeing it, hearing it.  

\-- _if you choose the quick and easy path, as Vader did_ , Yoda had said, and Luke found his jaw twitching. Anakin’s choice had been unquestionably wrong, had led to untold suffering and horror, had all but destroyed himself and could still easily destroy his son. But the path he had chosen was anything but quick and easy, and Luke didn’t think he had expected it to be.

 _He’s still trying to protect me, even if he doesn’t remember why_ , Luke thought. Some part of Anakin Skywalker lived still, amidst all of Vader’s evil. If --

No. It wasn’t possible. It would be madness to expect more than a refusal to personally kill him. And madness was the last thing he could afford, as Vader’s presence deepened with every parsec nearer to Tatooine. At this rate, Vader would have no difficulty locating him.

The next time Luke met his father, he’d have no lightsaber, nothing to protect him. Nothing but the Force.

 _He won’t kill me_ , Luke chanted. _He won’t kill me._

By the time that he flew past Obi-Wan’s hut, Luke knew that he had more than mere psychic proximity to contend with. He hadn’t felt his father so clearly since Bespin.

Vader was _here._

Luke landed his ship about a mile from the homestead, and clambered out. He hesitated, then brought Artoo along with him. Luke himself had nothing to fear from the Sand People, but the droid, however remarkable, couldn’t be expected to fend them off. He set Artoo on the ground and headed home.

It was odd, he thought idly, trying to ignore the terror clutching at his innards, that Vader hadn’t tried to reach him. He’d rebuilt his shields after the last vision, of course, but as close as they were now --

Well, it was for the best. Probably. But Vader had to know he was here.

Luke climbed over the last dune, and saw the farm spreading out in front of him. What was left of it, anyway. The equipment had long since been raided by Jawas or Sand People, and the burnt remnants of the house had collapsed at some point.

He remembered Owen’s hand on his shoulder, showing him how to shoot the laser rifle, Beru, speaking in careful, lilting Alsaraic as she taught him how to mend his clothes, Anakin swinging him into the air, Shmi touching his face with her ghostly hand. His family, all of them.

Luke walked forward, helping Artoo climb through the rubble. He didn’t see Vader, but he could feel him. He must be around the house, by the -- by the graves.

Even Sand People and Jawas might stay away from those, he thought, and rounded the corner.

Vader stood in front of Luke’s grandmother’s -- _his mother’s_ grave, uncharacteristically oblivious to everything around him. Luke could just hear the respirator’s harsh, measured breaths.

He took a deep breath of his own.

“Hello, Father,” he said.


	10. Chapter 10

Darth Vader was seldom surprised by anything. Events transpired as he intended them to, slowed only by the occasional obstacle, easily removed.

The encounter at Cloud City had been the first exception to that rule in many, many years. He had not expected Luke to penetrate his defenses, or fall to likely death rather than turn; he had not expected Calrissian to discover what passed for courage with him; he had not expected the Corellian pirateship to miraculously regain hyperspace capabilities. Nevertheless, he had been partially successful; almost everything that occurred had been expected.

When he arrived at Tatooine, he expected -- he did not know. But he knew that the Force had drawn him here for a reason other than rank sentimentality. Presumably that reason would reveal itself in due course.

He had not known that the house had been burned, but he was not surprised. The homesteaders led a precarious existence. Owen and Beru, alone, would have been especially vulnerable.

 _Vulnerable?_ he scoffed. _Owen could hold off an entire colony of Sand People._

Vader dismissed the thought, and the dismay pervading it. His -- Owen had known the risks he took in living here, just as _he_ had known the risks he took in leaving.

 _I was fourteen. I knew nothing._

He stalked past the house, uncertain what the ruins of this place could offer him, but determined to discover it. He hesitated a moment, thinking he felt Luke’s presence -- but no, it was impossible. The heat must be interfering with his senses.

The suit should have been able to endure much higher temperatures without any ill effects -- but he foresaw no danger, so he could investigate the minor malfunction at another time. Vader turned around the corner and saw a pair of cairns alongside the two markers he remembered.

Owen, and Beru, he assumed. If his brother and sister-in-law had died at the hands of raiders, it was rather odd that the same raiders would then have the courtesy to dispose of their remains. Not important. But odd.

His legs moved towards the first grave he recognized -- almost of their own volition, he would have said, if the cybernetic limbs _had_ any volition. Vader stared down at his mother’s name.

It occurred to him that, as successful as most of his immediate plans had been, that success had never extended _beyond_ the immediate. He had meant to end the war, overthrow the Emperor, bring peace and order to the galaxy, and protect his son. He had not achieved any of those goals, except perhaps the last -- for a certain value of _protect_ \-- and as for what had been achieved, he had never intended it. In fact, he had ultimately succeeded neither in accomplishing what he did intend, nor in preventing what he did not.

Eighteen years ago, he had stood here, and sworn this would never happen again. Now every member of his family, but one, lay buried here, and the wretched weakness within himself refused to be silent.

 _It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I never meant for any of this --_

The suit did not register any increase of heat, but it must have been mistaken, because he thought he sensed his son _right here_. He refused to succumb to his fleshly weakness so much as to even check behind him. It was impossible. He knew that. He would find Luke in due time, but --

“Hello, Father.”

Vader paused, then turned around. For all the protestations of the moment before, he was not especially surprised.

“So you have accepted the truth,” he said.

“That you were once Anakin Skywalker?” said Luke, approaching him -- or the graves. “Yes.”

The respirator stuttered, then resumed its regular gasps. “That name no longer has any meaning for me.”

Luke shrugged. “If you say so,” he said, with an indifference, almost insolence, that would have been suicidal in anyone else. “Father.”

Vader crushed the first several replies that sprang to his mind. “You have been trying to hide from me,” he said instead. “Why are you here now?”

“I’ve been _succeeding_ ,” Luke snapped, sharply reminding his father of how very young he still was. Twenty-one in two months -- too old to tolerate childish weakness, too young to realize he was not invincible.  

The vocoder didn’t bother to vocalize Vader’s sigh.

“And I don’t know,” Luke went on. “The Force didn’t provide a lot of details. But apparently I need to be here. So here I am.”

Vader remembered the lack of urgency that had so exasperated him, not a week earlier, and his jaw twitched. So. The Force had summoned Luke, just as it had him.

For what purpose, he did not know, and had no particular interest in knowing. It was enough that he’d been handed the opportunity he needed.

“And why are _you_ here?” Luke said, turning to face him. “I can’t think you came to leave flowers.”

“It may not be necessary for you to turn to the Dark Side,” Vader mused, ignoring the question. “Yet.”

 _“What?”_

“You have had a number of prescient dreams lately,” said Vader. “Dreams you have not sought -- which are nevertheless oddly specific to your goals.”

Luke stared at him, then paled. “You sent them. You’ve . . . but they were true. I could tell -- ”

“Of course they were true,” Vader said impatiently. “ _I_ cannot be seen to attack moffs and admirals -- not, at least, without incurring my master’s displeasure.”

Luke flinched. “But why would you want them attacked?” His brows drew together. “They were _all_ your enemies?”

Vader paused a moment, then said, “They made themselves my enemies, some more recently than others.”

Luke folded his arms, waiting. His right hand tightened around his left forearm, but he gave no sign of pain; the hand seemed at least as functional as his father’s.

Vader drew himself out of his inexplicable preoccupation, and returned to the uncomfortable business of explaining himself. He had not answered to anyone but the Emperor for almost twenty years, and had no intention of making a habit of it, but he needed Luke’s willing assistance, and thanks to Palpatine’s folly, he needed it much more immediately than he had intended.

He found it strangely difficult to meet his son’s clear gaze, and turned a little away, towards the house. “There are those in the Empire who benefit from the war,” he said. “Many of them have done everything in their power to extend it. They have no concern for order and security, or any prosperity beyond their own.”

“Father, I’m a Rebel,” said Luke, and Vader’s gaze swung back to him. “That’s not exactly news to me.”

“They are a disgrace to the Empire!” Vader snapped, and added unnecessarily, “I . . . disapprove.”

Luke’s expression was unreadable. “You were on the Death Star,” he said, in a slow, careful, bewildered voice. “You stood by while Tarkin destroyed an entire planet. Now you’re leaking intelligence about your own allies to the _Rebellion_ because . . . you disapprove of political corruption?”

“Yes,” said Vader, without further elaboration. This was different; everything would be different, this time.

“But that doesn’t make any sense!” Luke ran a hand through his hair in evident frustration. It was blond, Vader noted idly, like Arissa’s, but darker. “Why -- ”

“My change of mind is not as significant as you seem to think,” Vader finally told him. “I disapproved of the Death Star, as well, and made my feelings _quite_ clear to the heretics I was forced to cooperate with.”

“Yes, but -- ”

“And the destruction of Alderaan was --” he paused -- “foolish. If I’d had the power to prevent it, I would have. I _will_ have that power, next time. And there will be no more waste and corruption if I can stop it. Some small cooperation with your Rebel friends is far from the highest price I am willing to pay to bring order to the Empire and the galaxy.”

Luke opened his mouth, then shut it. “Right,” he managed to say, and frowned. “Wait. I blew up the Death Star. No thanks to you, since you were trying to kill me.”

“I had not yet discovered your identity, Luke,” said Vader. “If you die, it will not be by my hand.”

“I know,” Luke said absently. “But you said _next time_. What were you talking about? It’s not like there’s another Death Star floating around.”

Vader fell silent.

“Is it?”

“No,” he said. “Not another Death Star.”

“But something along the same lines?” Luke pressed.

Vader paused, considering. He had intended to provide the exact details somewhat later, after he had already won Luke’s allegiance, but if the revelation would gain his cooperation now, it was more than worth it.

“Yes,” he admitted. “The Emperor has secretly designed a weapon known as the Sun Crusher. It is still being planned right now, which makes this the perfect opportunity to strike at it.”

“The Sun Crusher? What does that do?”

Vader looked at him. “What do you think it does?”

“I was hoping it was a code name.”

“That would be too subtle for the Emperor,” Vader said, and even here, couldn’t keep from pacing back and forth, as if he were on the bridge of the _Executor._

“I wasn’t going to mention that,” said Luke. “So -- um -- not that I don’t appreciate the information, but why are you telling me? Even if I do inform the Alliance, the knowledge that a plan to build another superweapon exists, somewhere, isn’t enough to act on. We’re not the Empire. We don’t have unlimited resources.”

“I know that,” Vader said irritably. “A full-scale attack would be pointless at this stage. A lone agent would be far more effective. An agent who could respond instantly to any change in plans, and pass unnoticed within the Empire.”

“Not you, then.”

“Of course not. I will not commit treason.”

Luke made a small, muffled sound that might have been a laugh. “You won’t commit treason,” he repeated. “So instead you want me to commit treason on your behalf?”

“You have an excellent grasp of the obvious.”

“And _you_ should know how important it is to make sure everything’s been laid out clearly,” Luke replied, his insouciance sharpening to something Vader could not read, but which would undoubtedly hasten his eventual turn to the Dark Side. “You were trained by Obi-Wan, too.”

It was the first time in the last eighteen years that the mention of his old master’s name made Vader want to laugh, rather than to kill someone. But then, he had already killed Obi-Wan.

“I see,” he said, with perfect comprehension, then returned to the earlier subject. “I need an agent who can bypass mundane security measures, who I can contact immediately and securely, who has experience sabotaging Imperial projects, and who will under no circumstances betray me to the Emperor.”

“So basically, a Force-sensitive Rebel who happens to be your son,” said Luke. “How many of us are there?”

“You are my only child,” Vader said coldly.

“All right. But I can’t -- I know you’re not lying, but . . .” Luke rubbed his temples. “Even without the Dark Side, you’re -- but I can’t just let this thing -- I don’t know. What would you want me to do?”

“Is your foresight clouded?” Vader asked.

Luke’s brow furrowed. “Clouded? What do you mean?”

“No, then. Right now, I need information. You must meditate -- ”

“Meditate?” Luke gave him a look of almost comical dismay.

“I will do the same, but you are likely to obtain more specific information. Once we know when and where construction begins, you can infiltrate and sabotage the early stages of the project, delaying it as much as possible. Your disguise will depend on the security measures in place. Something face-concealing would be best, like stormtrooper armor.”

“I’m too short to be a stormtrooper,” said Luke, on another almost-laugh. “But I’m sure I can come up with something. If I do it.” He chewed his lip. “I have to think about this, all right? I realize we have a gigantic common interest here, but . . . I know you have your own agenda, and it is _not_ mine. I’m not just going to be a weapon against the Emperor. Yours or anyone’s.”

“So you still have a master of your own,” Vader observed.

Luke’s lips thinned, and this time, Vader had no difficulty interpreting the emotion that blazed in his eyes: anger. Good.

“I have a _teacher._ There’s a difference, Father.” He paused, recovering himself. “But I do need advice.”

“And you think you will get practical advice from a Jedi?” Vader said skeptically. “You must learn to rely on your own wits and instincts.”

Luke looked startled. “Er, thanks? But -- no, not a Jedi. I’m going to consult Grandmother.”

“Your grandmothers are dead,” said Vader.

“I know that. But one of them was Force-sensitive. She can appear as a ghost, like . . . Jedi, and she talks to me.”

Vader stiffened. “You have spoken to my mother?”

“Sure.” Luke’s steady gaze was at once harder and more sympathetic. “Mostly about you,” he admitted. “She can’t go near you, you know. The Dark Side repels them or something. And nobody will talk to her about you either. So I guess she just haunted the furthest corners of your Star Destroyer until she found me.” He paused. “Do you want me to tell her anything?”

The respirator labored slightly. He had been in the heat too long.

“You may greet her,” Vader said, as coolly as he could manage.

“All right.” Luke glanced up at him, and a flicker of alarm crossed his face. “I need to get back. I’ll --” he made a vague gesture -- “talk to you when I’ve made a decision.”

“Very well,” said Vader, and left with no further response; he had made his case as clearly as he could, and any further conversation would be pointless. As he walked away, he thought that for all the insolent vacillating, there was something brisk and autocratic underlying Luke’s boyish manner. In time, he would make a very effective Emperor.

Vader had nearly reached his shuttle when another thought crossed his mind.

"Luke," he said.

There was a hesitation, then -- "What?"

"You may be followed. Chart an indirect course."

He had the impression of amusement, and yet another indefinable emotion.

"Yes, sir!" said Luke. Then he slammed his shields down and flew into hyperspace, fading to a distant presence in the corner of Vader’s mind.

 

* * *

 

 

Leia’s initial journey was surprisingly uneventful. She travelled in an unmarked ship, of course, and Chewie kept to the smuggler lanes, where everyone did their best to ignore everyone else. They replotted their course two or three times, just to be careful, but between their relative anonymity and Leia’s deep pockets, they had no difficulty avoiding notice.

No difficulty, at least, until they approached their destination -- Carathis, second planet in the Alcar IV system -- and Chewbacca gave a roar of alarm.

“What is it?” Leia asked. She saw nothing but the blackness of space, but Chewie had spent hours modifying the ship’s sensors. She suspected that, if they functioned at all, their reach extended well beyond the usual.

“He says he’s picking up three -- no, five -- other vessels,” said Threepio. “They’re too distant to make out clearly, but -- what do you mean? Don’t be silly, Chewbacca, that’s impossible!”

Leia turned to glare at him. “ _What_ , Threepio?”

“He . . . he suspects they’re Imperial cruisers, Princess, but that can’t be. Not this far --”

Her throat dried. “I thought you said there hadn’t been any Imperials here since the wars!”

“There haven’t,” reported Threepio. “Chewbacca spoke to his colonial friends only six months ago. These ships must have arrived recently, if they are Imperials. Which, I must say, I consider highly unlikely -- ”

She turned to the Wookiee. “How far are they?” she asked, and frowned at his reply. “That’s much deeper in the system than Carathis.”

“But Princess Leia,” said Threepio, “the only planets beyond Carathis are gas giants, and the only habitable satellite is the forest moon of --”

Chewbacca gave a mournful howl.

“Endor,” Leia finished. “They must be doing something there. Chewie, I’m so sorry. We’ll -- we’ll find a way to help your friends, all right? I’m sure high command will be interested in a secret project all the way out here.”

“He says that _he’s_ interested,” said Threepio. “But he doesn’t want to risk your mission. He thinks they’re far enough away that we won’t show up on their radar, if we keep our shields up. Are we going ahead?”

Leia folded her arms, staring at the dark viewscreen.

“Yes,” she said.

She stepped out of the cockpit, closing the door behind her and facing the Alliance’s exploratory team. A full third of them were Alderaanian.

“Gentlemen,” she said, “we’re approaching the planet Carathis. We’ve found evidence of an Imperial presence deeper in the system, likely on the forest moon of Endor.” She took a deep breath. “I advise everyone to proceed with appropriate caution.”


	11. Chapter 11

Luke returned to the swamp in the middle of the night, landing his X-Wing a safe distance from the water. He peered into the darkness, just able to make out the darker smear of Yoda’s hut. Reaching out tentatively, he found Yoda deep in sleep.

Before Luke could stumble over to the hut, he caught a hint of another, fully alert presence. Adrenaline would have pumped through his veins, if he’d had any to spare.

There was a flicker of light, and Luke sighed.

“Obi-Wan,” he said, turning towards the dull glow, “I can’t -- ”

He blinked.

“Grandmother?”

“Luke,” she said, her lilting voice high and shaking, “you’re not hurt? You haven’t -- you’re fine. You’re fine.”

“Just tired,” said Luke blankly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d be so upset. You can show up anywhere, can’t you?”

“You were gone,” Shmi said.

“I was just on Tatooine,” he said. “It’s your home, I didn’t think -- ”

“You were _gone_ , Luke!”

“I don’t understand,” he said, his thoughts still sluggish. “I wasn’t doing anything. Just talking with -- _oh._ ”

She looked at him expectantly.

“Father. You can’t come near Father. I forgot.”

“You talked to Anakin,” said Shmi, the words slow and cautious, as if he might possibly be deranged. “You talked to him in _person_.”

“I didn’t know he’d be there!” Luke protested. “I just knew _I_ needed to be.”

“Did he -- ” Shmi turned away, her spectral fist over her mouth. “Did he say -- ”

“I told him I’ve been talking to you,” Luke told her. “He asked me to tell you, um, hello.”

“Hello.” She made a small, stifled sound that might have been a laugh. “Forgive me. I think I need to sit down.”

“Honestly, so do I,” said Luke, and collapsed onto a stump, while Shmi carefully seated herself on a rotting log. “Sorry, I didn’t realize what it meant. But I’ve been a week coming back. Couldn’t you tell -- ”

“You were meditating or sleeping the entire time. I didn’t know if you’d nearly died, or -- ”

“No. Just resting,” he said. “It was an exhausting conversation.”

“Resting for a _week?_ ”

“It was a very exhausting conversation,” said Luke. “And I needed to meditate on . . . lots of things, but mostly the Emperor’s new project. Father told me about it.”

Her eyes widened. “Anakin betrayed the Empire to you?”

“He has some idea that if he passes information on to me, and _I_ act on it, it isn’t really treason. I don’t know. He’s angry at the Emperor. More than usual, I guess.” Luke suppressed a yawn. “Well, I was going to ask you about it anyway. He’s been passing me information in my sleep.”

She sighed.

“And since I could tell the dreams were true, I assumed they were visions and passed them on to Leia. They _were_ true, but they were also . . . he’s just using the Rebellion to remove his political enemies. Well, people he disapproves of, anyway.”

“I’m afraid that _is_ Anakin’s definition of enemies,” Shmi told him, and pursed her lips. “But did the information help your friends?”

Luke stared down at his right hand, resting loosely on his thigh. The synthetic flesh was the exact same shade as his tanned skin. He wondered if his father’s were quite so high quality. Probably not. The medics had said something about recent advancements in the technology, and Anakin Skywalker had lost his hand before . . . well, _before_.

He sighed. “Yes,” he said. “Leia says so, anyway. They have to know about this -- but even telling them is . . . aiding and abetting Father, isn’t it?”

“Not if they know how you’re getting your information. Let your princess choose what she wants to do with it.”

“She’s not -- ” Luke shook his head. “I can’t tell her -- them -- that I’m on speaking terms with Darth Vader. Let alone that I’m his son!”

“Do they need to know that?” Shmi asked, tilting her head to the side.

Luke looked over at her, struck by the absurdity of it all. All those years he’d been a bored farmboy, longing for more, but certain that nothing more exciting than a Tusken raid could ever happen to him. Now he was a Jedi apprentice, living in a swamp, sitting across from his dead grandmother and deciding what to tell the leaders of the Rebellion about his father, Darth Vader.

Owen had always told him to be careful what he wished for. But even he couldn’t have expected anything so ludicrously improbable as this -- unless they had known. Luke didn’t think so, but --

His head ached.

“I . . . maybe not. I don’t know.” Luke lifted a hand to his temple, and then dropped it. “I don’t think I should make decisions when I’m too tired to walk in a straight line. I’ll be able to talk to you again?”

“Of course,” said Shmi, and vanished.

The next day, Luke woke to something cold and hard poking at his leg.

“Wha -- ” He opened his eyes, and Artoo beeped up at him, retracting a probe. “Hey, Artoo. Didn’t I turn you off last night?”

The droid’s response sounded suspiciously similar to a chortle. Luke laughed.

“Trivial details, right? Okay, let’s go find Yoda.” He got to his feet, wincing as his back and neck creaked into place, then wandered outdoors, Artoo whirring at his side.

Luke saw Obi-Wan before Yoda, the former’s spectral form nearly blocking the latter from view entirely. Both Jedi Masters were deep in conversation, but broke off as he approached. Yoda gave a small grunt that could have meant anything.

“Finally awake you are,” Yoda said.

“Good morning. I’m sorry -- I didn’t get back until late last night. This morning, probably.”

Luke couldn’t help but wonder if he’d always spent this much time apologizing.

“Hm! Worthwhile, was the interruption to your training?”

Obi-Wan simply looked at him expectantly.

“I . . . don’t know,” Luke said. He glanced from one to the other, then walked past them to stare down at the swamp, taking a deep breath. “I went to my uncle and aunt’s homestead. I could tell -- ” He pressed the fingers of his right hand against his mouth. After a moment, he turned around, eyes lowered and arms crossed.

“What happened, Luke?” Obi-Wan asked. They both seemed alarmed -- concerned, even.

Luke met his gaze squarely. “Father was there.”

“Vader!”

Yoda sighed. “So. Another trap, you have fallen into.”

“I don’t think I did,” Luke said, almost unconsciously digging his heels into the soggy earth. “He wouldn’t say why he came, but I think he was called, too.”

“You must be wary, Luke,” Obi-Wan told him. “Do not let yourself be fooled. Vader is a master of deceit.”

“Really?” said Luke, and fought back the accusations that rose to his lips. He lifted his cybernetic hand, instead. “This isn’t exactly the height of subtlety. As far as I can tell, he’s never even tried to deceive me. It’s all been _you will turn to the Dark Side this minute, young man_ and _I am your father_ and so on. Kind of straightforward. It fits with what I’ve heard of his reputation, too.” He dropped the hand. “Besides, I’ve spent the last week meditating on -- everything we talked about, and I haven’t sensed any deceit at all.”

“He is reckless still,” Yoda said thoughtfully. Luke hazarded a guess that the pronoun referred to his father, not himself -- thanks more to the lack of visible irritation than anything else.

“He’s not happy with the Emperor,” Luke said. “Or anyone, but he hates the Emperor. He says he wants me to help defeat him. I can’t, of course. Not his way. And not ours either, for -- I don’t know, years. But he . . . might not interfere much, if it comes down to that.” He lifted his head, his expression turning defiant. “No matter what he does, though, I won’t fight him. I can’t kill my own father.”

“Then the Emperor has already won,” said Obi-Wan.

Luke swallowed.

“Assassins we are not,” Yoda said, and turned his eyes to Luke. “ _You_ are not. Never will it be required of you. Only protection, of yourself, and others.”

“But the Emperor’s got to be stopped,” Luke said. “I don’t want to kill more people, but -- ”

“Stopped, yes. For this your friends fight, hmm? Many there are in your Rebellion, seeking the defeat of the Emperor. Your concern alone, it is not. Your duty, it is not.”

“But -- ”

“No! A Jedi you are, nearly. Your duty is to the Force. To defense, not attack. Never attack. Defend your life and others', you must, yes. Sometimes at a great price. But no more.”

“I understand,” said Luke, meaning it. After the removal from Yavin, he’d discovered that a million Imperial soldiers and officers had died on the Death Star. He’d also discovered that over eight billion Imperial citizens had died on Alderaan.

Any number of star systems would have shared Alderaan’s fate if his aim had faltered. Every pilot in the Rebellion had fought in the defense of billions if not trillions of innocent people that day, and he still couldn’t regret his success. But now, when he sensed even the smallest life throbbing about him, he felt almost sick when he thought of the price attached to that success. He couldn’t imagine killing again, except by necessity.

 _A Jedi uses the Force for defense, not attack_ , Yoda had told him, months ago now. And Luke wasn’t a soldier any more. He was a Jedi, or he would be, someday --

Someday. Luke stared at Yoda.

“Almost a Jedi? But -- you can’t mean -- there’s so much left for me to learn! I’m not anywhere near to knowing everything about the Force.”

“Heh, nor I. A lifetime, that would take,” said Yoda. He cast a sideways glance at Obi-Wan. “More than a lifetime.”

Obi-Wan chuckled to himself, then sobered. “Luke, you don’t even realize how much you’ve progressed. You are more attuned to the Force now than most Jedi are after years. Of course there is a great deal left for you to learn, but no Jedi would ever be knighted if it were a reward for perfect knowledge.”

“Far, you have come, since your failure at the cave,” Yoda acknowledged. “Two trials only are left to you.”

“Two? What are they? Do I need to go back to the cave?”

“No. Never can you go back. Another cave you shall seek.” Yoda hobbled forward, and pointed his cane across the swamp, at a murky, overgrown passage twisting into the trees. “That path, you see?”

Luke’s mouth dried. “You always said it was too dangerous to approach,” he said.

“Hm, yes, many dangers there are. Too many, before. Now . . . ” He shook his head. “Nothing, are they, to Darth Vader, and his presence you have survived twice.”

 _Because I’m his son!_ Luke didn’t think it much of a feat to survive the presence of someone, however fearsome, who had no desire to kill him. At Cloud City, Vader had chosen to spare him, and on Tatooine . . . well, Luke had only kept up his courage by talking as insolently as he dared, but he felt sure that his father would have been considerably less tolerant in any situation but the present one. He certainly didn’t owe his survival to any skill of his own.

“I don’t even have a lightsaber,” Luke said faintly.

“You would not be permitted to take one with you, even if you hadn’t lost Anakin’s,” said Obi-Wan, with a peculiar twist of his mouth. “You must succeed, or fail, on your own.”

“Yes. No blaster, no sword, no weapons,” said Yoda. “Only the Force. One last lesson will I teach you, and then you must go.”

Another protest was on the tip of his tongue. Luke hesitated, then bowed his head. “Yes, Master,” he said.

 

* * *

 

 

A week of intensive training later, Luke stood by the swamp, just opposite Yoda’s hut. He hoisted his pack, heavy with one bedroll, seven water bags, and several dozen nutritional bars, onto his shoulders.

“Remember,” said Yoda. “The Force is with you.”

“I remember,” Luke told him, and more for his sake than Yoda’s, added, “I’ll see you in a few days.”

He squared his shoulders and turned to the grey, shadowed wood, and the rough path that wound through it. His belt felt even emptier than usual, without anything hanging from it; Luke took a few cautious steps forward, then paused.

If the Force was his only ally now, he couldn’t afford to hobble it. Luke dropped every wall he’d built around himself, throwing his mind wide open.

The roar of the galaxy filled him. For a moment, he felt deafened by it, blinded, all his senses overwhelmed. Luke forced himself to step back, separating out the dull murmur of plants and rocks and other nonsentients, from the louder tremors that were nearby animals, from Yoda just behind him, from his father’s distant presence, sharp, steely, and startled.

"Luke? Are you --"

"I’m fine," Luke said tightly, and felt a flicker of annoyance, followed by -- approval? Vader receded to a remote corner of his awareness.

It didn’t make any sense, but never mind; he couldn’t spare the attention for that. Luke returned to _here_ and _now_ , letting them guide his senses.

He walked forward, the daylight fading to a dim grey-green glow. Clumps of moss grew up the trunks and dangled from the branches, so thickly that Luke had to duck. Small, dark rodents scrambled up the trees. Hundreds of insects scuttled this way and that. It didn’t seem that much worse than his first trial.

Which he had failed.

Well, Luke assured himself, it wouldn’t happen this time. He took a quick step forward, and --

 _Something long and grey blurred just above his head, and agony blossomed in his shoulder. He screamed --_

Luke threw himself backwards, and quick as fire, a large, dark grey snake unwrapped half its body from the branch he’d been standing under, and closed its fangs on nothing. With the breath knocked out of him, his mind struck out wildly, sending the serpent’s head and body smacking into the branch and holding it there.

He got to his feet in a few slow, cautious movements, trying to keep his outstretched hand steady, but it was his left hand and not quite so perfectly controlled as the right. The hand relaxed a little as he stood, fingers curling in, and the creature’s body seemed almost to narrow and shudder. Luke focused his mind, his fingers straightening. It gave a low hiss.

He blinked up, trying to think of what to do with an enraged, venomous, nine-foot snake. No sword, no gun, only the Force --

 _Only the Force!_ he scoffed. His mental voice sounded more like Yoda than Luke himself.

Luke considered the fangs, the attack-that-wasn’t. It might not have killed him, but certainly would have been incapacitating, and agonizing into the bargain.

Luke sighed. He’d started to crush the snake’s body on accident. Another way would be kinder, and he couldn’t leave it to attack him. He narrowed his concentration to the heart, and closed his fingers as he had before, crushing it as quickly as he could. Like a small pinprick, Luke felt the creature’s life gutter out.

Uncoiling the snake’s body from its branch and dropping it to the floor, Luke felt a rush of gratitude that his training had been so incomplete at Yavin. He exhaled and walked on.

His nerves were strung tight as he walked further into the wood, wary of every sound or motion, clinging to the Force. Another flash of the near future saved his life again; the colony of insects he sensed, just off the path, were in fact flesh-eating beetles. Luke managed to capture the colony and levitate it nearly a mile off his path, deep into the forest.

He was so deeply immersed in the Force by then that he couldn’t help but catch the tremor coming from the opposite direction -- a faint, persistent hum on the edge of his awareness. Luke hesitated a moment, reluctant to leave even so dangerous a path as this one, but this had to be the source of . . . whatever it was that he had to find. There was no point in continuing on the path; he turned off, ducking further into the forest.

The trees grew so thickly, here, that his eyes were all but useless. Luke shut them and cocooned himself in the Force, a sense of exposed roots, low-hanging branches, and anything else in the way, like trees, sliding into his mind.

He passed any number of animals, many of them dangerous, but none posed any immediate risk. He left them to their business and kept going, until a large, feline creature he didn’t recognize beyond _thing-that-wants-to-eat-me_ would have torn his throat out. Instead, he apologetically crushed its larynx.

Luke kept going, the earlier hum now clear, repeated peals, echoing throughout his bones, and he followed it up a sharp incline. Avoiding one carnivorous plant and several more poisonous ones, he emerged into the dull, sickly light of evening. He still took a moment to adjust, blinking up into the mouth of a cave. It shone a sharp, brilliant blue-white that would have disconcerted him at any other time.

Rather to his surprise, neither plant nor animal attempted to devour him as he scrambled up the rest of the way to the glowing cave. He could sense some immense power in the Force; not a _presence_ , exactly, but a . . . resonance. Nothing less than sapient, he thought, would dare approach too nearly.

Luke stepped inside the cave, and burst into incredulous laughter.

The cave’s light and power came not from any transcendental being or mysterious artifact, but from _crystals_. They hung from the roof and along the walls in jagged blue lines, each humming in the Force, and shining brightly in defiance of the encroaching evening.

Luke blinked several times, the shift from twilight to radiance dazzling his eyes. That unfading glow couldn’t be mere refraction -- some kind of luminescent organism grew on them, perhaps. But that wouldn’t explain the constant tremors they sent reverberating through the Force. He sensed no danger, but there was _something_. Something familiar, almost, in the sound and sight of them.

He found a dry patch of floor and dropped to his knees, sliding his bag off his weary shoulders. Spreading his bedroll out, he flopped onto his back, chewing on one of the nutritional bars and staring upwards. It’d be hours before he got to sleep in here, between the light and the low roar of the crystals -- it was like having hundreds of lightsabers buzzing above his head.

Lightsabers.

He still remembered sitting on the _Falcon_ with Obi-Wan, watching anxiously as the old Jedi separated the hilt out. At Obi-Wan’s command, he’d peered inside and gaped at the source of the weapon’s energy -- not some kind of power cell, as he’d imagined, but a glowing blue-white stone.

Luke jolted upright. Not a stone, he thought. A piece of crystal. A piece of one of _these_ crystals, or similar ones elsewhere. He hadn’t sensed that crystal’s power, but it was only a tiny fraction of one, after all, and back then, he’d been so detached from the Force that he couldn’t even feel the destruction of Alderaan. Later, though, he’d been able to sense the whispers of energy, deep inside the weapon, and then -- well, and then he’d lost it.

Now, he’d be able to build a new one. That was why Yoda had sent him here, aside of the trials of the journey itself. This was his first step to creating his own lightsaber.

 

* * *

 

 

Several hours later, Luke was still awake, but exhausted. Finally, he gave in and searched the future for any possible dangers, found nothing, and shielded his mind from everything. Even with the light, he fell asleep immediately.

He awoke to silence. He heard only a distant drip of water, further in the cave: no dangers, no presences, no interconnected vastness wrapping itself around him. For a moment, Luke luxuriated in that absence, sensing only the light brush of air on his face, the blanket underneath him, the glow against his eyelids. But his relief almost immediately transformed into alarm. Luke sat up.

He was cut off from all other life. Alone, vulnerable. Everything was _gone._

Panic shuddered up his spine and he threw his shields open, half-expecting the Force to rush into him. But the only tremor came from his renewed sense of the crystals, singing once more in his mind. The Force had been with him the whole time. Well, of course; he’d just put on a . . . a sort of psychic blindfold. It would always be with him. Always.

He could feel his father on the edges of his awareness. For the first time, it was a comfort.

Vader, Yoda, Leia, they were all with him in the Force, their presences clear and vibrant. Luke drew a deep breath, then caught it in his throat.

 _Leia._ She was so far, usually, that he could only barely sense her. Each contact across that distance had left him exhausted, almost unconscious. Now, though, he felt her nearly as strongly as his father. She was close; well, not _close_ , but much, much closer.

Even that, however, couldn’t explain the immediacy of her presence. Luke got to his feet, brows furrowed, and his eyes fell on the crystals. The Force, he thought, must be very strong here.

"Leia?"

"Luke!" His sense of her seemed to rush over his mind. "How -- oh, let me get a datapad."

"No, it’s fine," he assured her. "I haven’t seen anything. It’s just . . . there’s something I need to ask you about. Are you busy? I don’t know what time it is on -- wherever you are."

"It’s called Carathis," said Leia. "You wouldn’t have heard of it. But you’d better hurry before you fade out. I’m not doing anything at the moment."

Luke felt the vibrations the crystals sent reverberating throughout the Force, and smiled. "I’ve found a place where I don’t think that’ll be a problem. You’re right, though, I’ve never heard of Carathis before."

"It’s in the Alcar IV system," she said. "It was one of the clone worlds, but nobody’s lived on it since the wars. There’s no work for me in the Alliance right now, so I’m leading an expedition to see if it’d be suitable for us to settle on. I’m going to hold a vote as soon as I get back to the base."

"For us?" he said blankly, then his eyes widened. "The Alderaanians? Leia, that’s wonderful! That far out, there won’t even be any Imperial outposts."

He could almost see her face tighten.

"There is one?"

"Not an outpost," said Leia. "Some kind of project, deeper in the system. We think it’s on one of the moons of Endor."

Luke bit his lip. "The Sun Crusher."

"The _what?_ "

"It’s . . . I might have . . . that’s what I wanted to ask you about," he said. "I’ve been contacted by a -- a disaffected Imperial. A Force-sensitive. This person recently found out about a secret project, a plan to make a new battle station, even more powerful than the Death Star. They’re so outraged about it that they betrayed the secret to me. And I think they want to keep passing information."

"But nobody knows about this," said Leia. "The Bothans hadn’t heard a thing."

Luke didn’t like to make a point of the differences between them. He hesitated, then forged ahead. "I know they’re very capable, but they don’t have any strength in the Force, do they? My contact is an actual Imperial, and very strong."

Leia considered. "There’s something else," she said. "Why didn’t your contact go directly to the Rebellion?"

"Because they hate the Rebellion," Luke admitted. "They just hate the Emperor more. They don’t want to help us, they want _us_ to help them. They’re willing to hand over information about all their enemies in the Empire, which is . . . pretty much everyone in the Empire, and they want to keep the Sun Crusher from ever getting constructed."

"Mm," said Leia.

"But it’s not for our reasons, it’s not for us, and I can’t pass on their intelligence without telling you where it’s coming from." Hurriedly, he added, "I’ll know if they aren’t telling the truth, but there are plenty of ways to deceive without lying."

He realized what he’d just said, and winced.

"I realize that," said Leia. "I was an Imperial Senator myself, remember."

Luke did remember. He just couldn’t picture it.

She fell silent for a few moments. Then she said, "There’s a lot to consider. I have to think about it. But if we’re looking at another Death Star, we can’t afford to ignore a source of accurate information. Did this person give you their name? If we at least had a reputation to judge by --"

"No," said Luke. "They didn't."

Leia sighed. "I didn’t think so. Oh, well. Luke, we need to talk more about this -- talk like normal people, I mean. And we can’t trust anything that might get intercepted, so . . . I’ll be leaving in five days. Is there some way that I can get to you?"

"You’re much closer now," he said, and after a moment’s vacillation, added, "I’m on the planet Dagobah. I can give you precise coordinates if you need them, or meet up with you off-planet. But if I’m remembering correctly, I think it’d be almost on your course."

"Give me the coordinates on the day we leave, when I can check the navicomputer," she said. He felt a suggestion of a smile. "I don’t want to interrupt your training. Besides, I’d like to meet your teacher. Except for you, I’ve never even seen a Jedi before."

Luke’s spine prickled. Not with foreboding, exactly. Just a hint of the future, of something to do with her, and Jedi, and . . . yes. She needed to come to Dagobah, and not only to satisfy some mild curiosity.

"I’d like you to meet him, too," said Luke.


	12. Chapter 12

Luke meditated for the rest of the morning. Then he walked up and down the cave, gliding his fingers along the crystals, focusing his senses as narrowly as he could. Two or three of them seemed to resonate with even greater intensity than the others.

Luke considered them. He didn’t know how normal apprentices had acquired them. Of course, he wasn’t a normal apprentice by any stretch of the imagination. It didn’t much matter how they’d done it, when he’d had to be mindful of the crushing strength in his new hand since his surgery. Now, for once, it would be a blessing rather than a curse.

He gripped each of the chosen crystals, and with a jerk of his fingers, they snapped off, falling into his hands. Luke broke them into smaller pieces and stuffed them into his bag.

He made his way back to Yoda’s hut, surviving with rather greater ease than when he’d been heading in the opposite direction. This time, he knew what to expect -- and of course, now he had the crystals. It wasn’t like the cave, of course, but they still heightened his connection to the Force.

As he walked, Luke no longer even felt as if he had one foot in the mundane world, and the other in some mystical alternate reality. It seemed quite natural for glowing presences, ever-shifting connections, and glimpses of the future to exist alongside plants and rocks and water. He didn’t think he could go back to the way he’d seen things before. Maybe it was the crystals, but if so, he didn’t care; soon enough, he’d be carrying one with him all the time, anyway.

He emerged near the swamp by dusk, and found Yoda and Obi-Wan waiting for him. They were smiling. The former looked very nearly smug.

Luke, no longer in danger of being killed by wild animals or predatory plants, put up his shields and put down his guard.

“I’ve got my crystals,” he announced. He couldn’t help but grin back. “And I didn’t turn to the Dark Side or anything.”

“Well done,” Obi-Wan said.

“Mm, yes,” said Yoda, his ears straightening. “Only the greatest trial is now left to you. More difficult and dangerous than this. Much more.”

Luke gulped.

“But now we eat.”

He gave a small cackle at the expression on Luke’s face, then turned and hobbled back into the hut. Luke and Obi-Wan exchanged an amused look and followed him in=, where the former gratefully accepted his soup and the latter perched on a chair. While Yoda and Luke ate, the two Jedi Masters interrogated Luke about his journey and retrieval of the crystals.

Within half an hour, however, Yoda’s ears were drooping, and he looked as if he were on the point of planting his face in his bowl. Luke gazed at him, frowning.

“You should sleep, Master Yoda. You need your rest,” he said. “Obi-Wan can tell me about the last trial.”

He couldn’t quite keep the alarm out of his expression. Of course, Yoda had been ancient for as long as he’d known him, but before now, Luke hadn’t noticed how much more so he had become. He never took a step without leaning heavily on his cane and spent more and more hours asleep, yet seemed worn and tired when he was awake. Even his face was more weathered than it had been.

“Hm, that face you make,” he said. “Look I so old to young eyes?”

“No -- no, of course not,” said Luke hastily. He glanced at Obi-Wan, half for reassurance, half to avoid Yoda’s still-sharp eyes, but the ghostly Jedi only shook his head.

“I do. Yes, I do! Sick have I become. Old and weak.” He chuckled, more to himself than Luke, and pointed one gnarled finger at him. “When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not, hm?”

Luke managed a weak smile.

“But yes. Rest need I now.” He got to his feet, Luke jumping up to help him, and laughed again. “Rest! Soon will I rest, forever sleep. But not yet.”

Yoda tottered off to his bed, the rough door closing behind him. Luke whirled to glare at Obi-Wan.

“He can’t die!”

Obi-Wan’s expression turned grave, and then resigned. “He is very, very old.”

“But he’s so powerful,” Luke protested.

“He is strong in the Force,” Obi-Wan told him, “but not that strong. Nobody is. He has earned his rest, Luke.” He gave him a small smile. “And you needn’t despair just yet. He has some time left.”

Luke just managed a nod. He made his way over to a window and knelt in front of it, his fingers tight on the sill. Staring into the Dagobah night, he let the countless sparks of life wash over him, from the great Jedi master, asleep in the next room, to the tiny pebbles below the window. The Force, he told himself, would be with Yoda always, too. Even once he died, he’d still be bound to it. He’d remain in the world Luke now lived in, just as Obi-Wan had.

But it wasn’t the same. Obi-Wan and Shmi . . . of course it was better than losing them altogether. But it wasn’t like walking alongside Ben had been, like a living grandparent would have been. They weren’t what they had been, any more than -- than his hand. The dead, even when they continued on, were still dead.

He closed his eyes, bowing his head. “What is my final trial?” he asked evenly.

“You must pass on what you have learned,” said Obi-Wan.

Luke twisted around to stare at him. “Pass on -- but I’ve only had a few months’ training myself! Besides, I’m the last one left. Aren’t I? You told me, yourself, that the Empire, that _Father_ turned every Force-sensitive he found over to the Emperor.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan acknowledged, “every one he found. But he did not find them all.” He gazed down at Luke, his eyes intense even through the shimmer of his ghostly form. “You are not alone.”

Luke could only stare at him, dizzy. Then he remembered to breathe, and gulped in great, painful gasps of air.

He turned fully around. “How many?” he managed to say.

“I don’t know,” said Obi-Wan. “One rather . . . wayward Jedi was cast out of the Order some time before Vader took charge of the Purge. He had a Force-sensitive child with him. In all probability, they were found and killed. We never found out. But another lived with her parents in the very heart of the Empire, and . . . somehow, escaped Vader’s notice.”

The half-reluctant _somehow_ caught Luke’s attention. Obi-Wan had a very good idea of how it had happened. Perhaps he even knew for certain, and just couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge it. It was difficult to know with Obi-Wan, sometimes.

Something to do with his father, Luke thought. Like most things that Obi-Wan took his . . . unusual points of view towards. Well, Vader had been in charge of the final Purges. This girl hadn’t slipped past a flimsi-fiddling bureaucrat, but Vader himself.

Impossible! Or at least, improbable. More likely, Vader hadn’t simply missed the Force-sensitive living on his doorstep, but . . . yes, that felt right. She hadn’t flown under the radar. The radar had flown over her. But he couldn’t imagine Darth Vader, even a younger, less callous Vader, sparing this girl in a fit of impersonal altruism. It’d have to be --

Luke gasped. “Leia. It’s Leia!”

 _Why didn’t you tell me? Did her parents know? Is that why --_

“The Force is with her,” Obi-Wan said.

“ _Senator Amidala_ was a Jedi?”

Obi-Wan laughed at that. “No. She had enough of the Force to hit anything she aimed at, but she was never anything other than a politician.” He flickered. “Luke, listen to me. You must teach your friend the ways of the Force.”

“But I’m still only half-trained myself! I can’t -- ”

“You must. Untrained, she is at her most vulnerable. If Leia were to fall -- ”

“Leia would never join the Emperor. She hates the Empire!”

“So did Anakin,” said Obi-Wan grimly. “Moreover, the Emperor is not the Dark Side -- much though he would like to think so. Hatred, anger, aggression -- they lead to it more quickly and more surely than anything else, and she has them all in abundance. Her path will be longer and harder than yours or Anakin's ever were. Help her, Luke. Do for your friend what I should have done for mine.”

Luke flinched, turning away to stare at his abandoned soup. “I can't speak for her,” he said finally. “It's Leia's choice, not mine. But if she agrees to be trained, I'll do my best.”

“May the Force be with you both,” said Obi-Wan.

 

* * *

 

 

Four days later, Leia’s ship blasted off the surface of Carathis.

She stood at the viewscreen and watched the planet recede, greenery and ruins fading into blues and whites, fading into a distant light, fading into nothing. The Imperials didn’t seem to have changed position; their ships still appeared on Chewbacca’s modified equipment, and Leia’s own ship easily slipped past without notice.

Nevertheless, everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they headed into deep space.

Carathis was nearly perfect. Smaller than Alderaan, yes -- but then, they hardly needed the space provided by their home planet, when only a fraction of a percent of them had survived. Otherwise, the atmosphere and climate were exactly suited to humanoid physiology, and they’d found a number of spots suitable for a settlement. Since the planet was, indeed, bare of all sapient life, colonization wouldn’t displace any other peoples.

It would have been perfect, if not for that damn Imperial project. Leia’s fingernails dug into her palms. Every flight into the Alcar IV system was a risk. Too great a risk, in all probability. Her actions had devastated her people already; Tarkin might have been determined to destroy a highly visible, highly populated planet anyway, but it had been _Alderaan_ because of her.

She drew a deep, shuddering breath. No, she would gladly risk it for herself, but she couldn’t endanger them. Not again. She’d take it to _them_ \-- the ones she’d found, anyway. They could choose for themselves. And no matter what happened, she’d keep looking for the others.

Leia’s mind drifted to Luke’s information. Another Death Star, a possible spy. A high-placed spy, even. But an enemy to the Rebellion. Using this person’s intelligence would be falling in with their plans. Not using it would be --

 _A beam of green light blasted towards Alderaan. It was impossible -- not Alderaan -- they hadn’t even done anything -- no weapons -- just her --_

 _With a shudder of the planetary shields, her home exploded in a burst of light, splintering into lifeless rocks. Every single person was dead, everything burning, and somehow, Leia managed to jerk out of Vader’s painfully tight grip and bolt towards Tarkin._

 _Five minutes ago, she had felt as if she’d rather die than let him touch her again, but now she didn’t care about anything except scratching his eyes out, didn’t care if she **did** die doing it, and then Vader’s gloved hands were digging into her shoulders again and yanking her away from Tarkin and she wanted to kill him, too --_

Leia squeezed her eyes shut. She’d thought of this as a difficult choice. But it wasn’t a choice at all. She couldn’t let that happen again, not if she could do something to stop it. _They_ couldn’t. She’d take the news to Mothma and the generals, of course, but she knew what they would decide.

She opened her eyes, pulling out her datapad and handing it to a bemused Chewbacca.

“Set our destination for these coordinates,” she said.

Kurek, the pilot, glanced at her in surprise.

“I need to meet with someone there,” said Leia, certain that Luke didn’t want his location known. She trusted everyone here, but critical information had a way of getting out. She, Chewie and -- most dangerously -- Threepio would go down alone.

They reached the sector without any Imperial entanglements -- an unremarkable if fortunate happenstance, in this remote corner of the galaxy. A day from their arrival, however, Chewbacca’s comlink gave a sharp buzz.

Threepio, peering around the Wookiee’s shoulder, gave a small, robotic gasp. “Why, it’s Lando Calrissian!”

“Lando,” breathed Leia, her stomach tightening. “He must have news. Let him through, Chewie.”

Chewbacca switched it on, growling a short greeting.

“Chew . . . that you?” said Lando, his voice distant and crackling. “I . . . can’t talk much, but . . . apped the place, sending . . . lowered security for . . . six weeks . . . hear that?”

“Jabba’s going to lower the security in six weeks?” Leia asked swiftly.

“That’s ri --”

“That’s when we’ll be coming, then. You’ll need to be ready.”

“I’ll be wait . . . one’s coming,” Lando said, and disconnected.

Chewbacca gave a joyous roar. Leia grinned at him.

“Six weeks, and we’ll have Han back, Chewie.”

Months of nothing, she thought, and now she had refugees, rescues, a vote, and a spy on her hands. Well, she’d manage, somehow. Better this than being reduced to the tragic little princess, day in and day out.

And in a few hours, she’d see Luke again. Leia bit her lip. He’d already seemed so different when she last saw him, and it had been almost five months since then. She hoped . . . she didn’t even know. That after all this time, perhaps he’d learned enough to come back to the Rebellion. Perhaps, with Jabba taken care of, he’d be able to convince Han to stay -- at the least, perhaps they’d spare the time to help with _her_ mission.

After all, smugglers and seers were hardly less useful than engineers or scientists -- and the three of them had always achieved their greatest successes in concert -- and, well, she wanted them with her. She wanted everything to be like it had been before.

Except now, she and Han were . . . _something_. She’d admitted that she loved him, at any rate, and he (probably) loved her too. Somehow, that didn’t make it feel wrong to kiss Luke afterwards.

He was her best friend -- her only friend, she thought sometimes, but that only made her love him more, not less. Not in quite the same way she loved Han, but not quite different, either. Besides, he’d been suffering, broken; after everything that had happened to them both, it was only natural to try and comfort them both. It always was about comfort, with Luke. It was --

It was complicated.

No, they couldn’t go back to being three friends running around the galaxy, with only a touch of low, safe tension running between them. But she still felt they should be _together_ \-- at least in some way -- every once in awhile -- if they could. And for now, she wanted to see Luke.


	13. Chapter 13

Leia ordered the ship to remain in orbit, while she, Chewie, and Threepio boarded the shuttle and followed the second set of coordinates Luke had given them. He’d warned them about the swamp, so they were careful to maneuver past it, landing on the closest approximation of solid ground they could find. Chewie lowered the ramp and clattered down, sniffing the air.

Threepio and Leia followed, the droid prattling so rapidly that she’d have needed an interpreter to understand _him_ , if she’d had any interest in listening. Instead, she looked around, trying to calm the anxiety that stabbed at her chest and throat and belly, even as she took in her surroundings. Her shoulder blades itched.

“What do you smell, Chewie?”

The Wookiee pointed ahead, through a tangle of vines.

“H-he says there are humanoids in that direction,” reported Threepio. Leia glanced from the droid to the narrow opening, then took out her vibroblade and sliced through them, leaving the way clear even for him.

They marched through, Leia keeping her blaster close at hand. Her instincts had never led her wrong, and they were screaming that this place was anything but safe. Then, with another chop of vines, Leia caught sight of a hut, so short and rough and sprawling that it seemed like it might have grown out of the swamp.

All three hurried towards the house, stopping only when the door slammed open and a young man ducked out -- a man in grey Rebel fatigues, with shaggy fair hair falling into his eyes.

“Luke!” Leia cried, and his face lit up.

“Hel --”

Chewbacca gave a loud roar and seized him in an enthusiastic hug, Luke’s feet flying off the ground and his hands patting the Wookiee’s massive shoulders.

“Nice to see you too,” he said as Chewie released him, teetering for a moment before he caught his balance. Then he turned back towards the others.

“Leia,” he said, pushing his hair out of his eyes and smiling with his usual tentative affection. They looked at one another for a moment, seized by awkwardness, and then Leia smiled back and ran forward, wrapping her arms around him.

Over the last few months, she’d always been glad to hear from him, even if only in odd fragments passing from his mind to hers. But it wasn’t the same as being right here, so close that his hair brushed her cheek as her chin dug into his shoulder, their hands flat against each other’s backs.

She released him and took a step backwards. She didn’t feel disconcerted or excited, like she had with Han, just safe, comfortable, happy.

Leia scowled at him.

“You haven’t been eating enough,” she said, and poked at his ribs.

Luke laughed. “Neither have you. The Rebellion working you to the bone again?”

“Not exactly,” she said, her frown deepening.

“Hello, Master Luke,” said Threepio. “I’m so relieved to see you’ve survived this terrible place!”

Leia jumped back as a small astrodroid barrelled out the door, past Luke, and rolled to a halt, his beeps and whirrs frenetic.

“Well, it’s very nice to see you too, Artoo -- no, I -- I have been of _inestimable_ service to the princess, I’ll have you know!”

Chewie howled with laughter. Luke and Leia grinned.

“Well, come on in,” he said. “I think the hut is too short for Chewie and Threepio, but Yoda’s waiting to meet you. He probably won’t be able to stay awake very long.”

“I will stay right here, thank you,” said Threepio, and loftily ignored Artoo’s mocking beep. Chewie nodded his agreement, and went back to needling the droids.

Leia followed Luke inside, even _her_ head nearly bumping the ceiling. They half-walked, half-crouched their way to a sort of kitchen, Luke gesturing for Leia to sit at the table. It was only then that she noticed the wrinkled green alien dozing in a chair, his tiny body swathed in blankets.

“Master Yoda,” Luke said loudly, and Leia stifled a burst of astonishment that this small being was a mighty Jedi Master. Then the alien opened enormous, intelligent green eyes, and blinked at her.

“Princess Leia you are,” he croaked, his voice thin and shrill.

“I am.” She gave a respectful nod of her head.

“Heard much of you I have,” said Yoda. “But did not expect to see you with these eyes. Not in life.” Then he looked at Luke and cackled. “Impertinent questions I should ask, yes?”

Luke blushed.

Leia thought she could feel her own cheeks warming, but she said steadily, “I’m happy to answer any question you have -- um, sir.”

Yoda chuckled again. “Questions later! Important matters, you have to discuss. Important nap, I have to finish. Run along for now.”

He closed his eyes, and promptly began to breathe loudly and noisily, then cracked open one eyelid.

“Still here you are.”

“Sorry,” Luke said, and led Leia past the strange old Jedi, through another door, and out into the dim green sunlight. The shadows of the overhanging trees and vines seemed a little less oppressive here, and she could see three or four clear, well-trodden paths. So this was where Luke walked. Leia smiled a little. Jedi or not, she knew him too well to think he wouldn’t have a place to waste hours pacing.

“Yoda’s very eccentric,” said Luke, “and very old.”

“I like him,” Leia said, rather amused. She jumped at a distant roar from Chewbacca, followed by an indistinct, but clearly shrill and petulant, monologue from Threepio, and pointed at the nearest path. “Is that safe?”

“More or less.” He glanced at her blaster. “It’s not dangerous for us, anyway.”

He set out immediately, and Leia ran to catch up, just as he shortened his stride. Glancing sideways at him, she had the uncomfortable feeling that he wasn’t as much -- himself -- as he seemed. At least, not the same person who’d stood beside her on the _Redemption_ , watching a distant galaxy.

Chewie’s and Threepio’s voices faded into silence, and Luke glanced over at her. Leia dug her hands into the pockets of her jacket.

“So,” she said. “Important matters.”

He hesitated, then said, “Have you decided what to do about Carathis?”

“I’m going to hold a vote,” said Leia, and explained everything, from her forced uselessness, to Chewbacca’s revelation of the Wookiee colony and the clone planet, to their discovery of Imperial ships. She half-expected Luke to interrupt with indignant reassurances, as he would have once done, but instead he just listened quietly, nodding here and there.

“I’m leaving the choice up to all the Alderaanians -- all the ones I know of, I mean,” she said. “If they want to risk it, then I’m gladly lead them there. I’m not afraid for myself. But otherwise, I can’t endanger them like that, not if I can’t protect them. And I know I can’t. I’m not an army like Vader.” She looked at Luke, once more struck by the feeling that there was something new and different just under his skin, something that reminded her more of Vader, and now perhaps Yoda, than the Luke she remembered. “Like _you_.”

He stopped. “Well, um --”

Leia folded her arms, her brows drawing together. “You don’t have to be modest, Luke. I can tell that you have a power I -- I don’t understand, and could never have.”

“You’re wrong,” he said flatly.

“What?”

He winced, but forged ahead. “You have that power too, Leia. In time, you can learn to use it as I have.”

“But I -- ” Leia gave a small, incredulous laugh. “That’s impossible! What are you talking about?”

“The Force runs in families,” said Luke. “My grandmother had it, my parents had it, I have it. It’s the same with you.”

“But my parents weren’t Jedi! My father was viceroy of Alderaan, and my mother -- ”

“ -- was an Imperial Senator. I know. She didn’t realize she was Force-sensitive, of course, but -- well -- she was. That’s why her aim was so good,” he said, then looked thoughtful. “Probably her reflexes too, if I’m remembering right.”

“You _can’t_ be remembering right,” Leia said desperately. “I hardly remember her myself. She died when I was very young.”

“I know,” he said again. “I saw her in a vision. Of my parents. It turns out they knew each other. Anyway, you inherited it from her. If you want to become a -- an army, there’s nothing stopping you.”

Leia wished she were sitting down. Instead, she stalked a few steps forward, then turned around, her fingers digging into her palm. “That’s why I could hear you? In my mind?”

“No, it’s -- ” Then he scowled. “Actually, yes, it probably does have something to do with that.”

“It’s . . . I don’t . . . Luke, I don’t know much about Jedi, but I know it’s not something you just try on for a few weeks to see if it fits. This is a commitment that would change my entire life.”

“Yes,” Luke agreed.

“And there’s so much I already need to do. Still, if I could become powerful enough to protect _everyone_ \-- but it’s not supposed to be about power, is it? I’m not exactly the spiritual type, Luke.”

“Before the Empire,” he said, hesitating so much she knew he was considering each word, “I think you’d have been right. Ideally, a Jedi should be calm, detached and passive, like Yoda and Obi-Wan. Completely dedicated to the Force. But it’s not possible to be like that, any more. I’m not; I mean, I try, but I’m more like you. I have other duties and other loyalties. I think -- ” He chewed on his lip. “I think the Jedi have to change if we’re going to survive at all. Obi-Wan once told me the Jedi were there to fight for truth and justice. That’s what you’d be expected to do.”

“I do that anyway,” said Leia. “What about the rest?”

He shrugged. “I don’t think it’s that important, really, as long as you don’t turn evil. But even if you aren’t willing to commit to the Jedi -- and really, I’ll understand if you’re not -- this power you have . . . it’s part of you. It’s yours. You have a right to do whatever you want with it.”

“I’m guessing that’s not Jedi-approved doctrine,” Leia said, but she was smiling.

Luke laughed. “Probably not. I don’t know -- there’s so much I don’t know, but I’d be the one teaching you, so we’d just have to fumble through.” He looked directly into her eyes. “It’s a gift, Leia, and I don’t think anyone has the right to take away a gift you were born with, or prevent you from learning how to use it, because you don’t live in perfect agreement with _their_ beliefs.”

“You’d teach me to use this -- ” she gestured -- “gift, even if I didn’t agree to become a Jedi?”

Luke took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“But -- ?”

“Nothing.” His mouth twitched, a little wistfully. “I’d just -- rather you did.”

On impulse, she asked, “How do you know it’s real? The Force?”

He gave her a politely incredulous look.

“I mean, not just a tool, or a -- a gift. When I was in the Empire, we all saw what Vader could do, but nobody believed it was some infinite cosmic energy . . . thing. We just called it sorcery. So do you have -- faith, or . . .?”

“Well,” said Luke, “I can see it.”

Leia blinked.

“I can sense it, anyway. You will too, if you get trained.” He brought the sides of his hands together. “It runs between everything in the galaxy, binding each tree and rock and animal and planet and star and -- all of it, to every other one. And there’s so much of it with some of us, that we tap into it a little. If you’re not trained, it’s mostly uncontrolled and accidental, and you can’t really tell what’s happening.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not controlling it now?”

“Well -- ”

She glared.

“No.” Luke dropped his hands. “It won’t harm you like this, you don’t need to worry about that. Just makes you faster, stronger, more accurate. The danger comes with training. I hear.”

“What danger?”

“The Dark Side. It’s a sort of cancer on the Force, and it comes naturally when you’re feeling angry or aggressive -- that’s why the Jedi are taught to stay calm. It’s quicker and easier, but when you use it, you have almost no control over it, or yourself. People who fall to the Dark Side . . . even their own mothers can’t recognize them.”

Leia caught her breath. “That thing about turning evil -- it wasn’t a joke?”

“No.” Almost reluctantly, he added, “That’s what happened to Vader, you know. He was a good person. Before. Even the Emperor might have been, I guess. So you’ll want to be on your guard, whether you become a Jedi or not. If you don’t want to risk it, you’re better off staying the way you are. It’s your choice.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said sharply. “It’s just -- a lot to take in. Let me see if I’ve got this right. You’re telling me that I was born with the potential to alter reality by drawing on an omnipotent energy field that is connected to every single thing in the galaxy. You’d willingly teach me how to use these powers for any purpose I want. I might end up using them to rescue Han and protect the other Alderaanians and maybe even join you. Or I _might_ become a raging monster.”

Luke flinched. “That pretty much covers it.”

Leia studied the ground for several minutes, her eyes unseeing and her thoughts racing. This changed everything. She could be the one catching blaster bolts in her hand, glimpsing danger before it ever happened, moving objects with her mind alone. Well, one of the ones. But she’d have to stop everything to learn. And if she faltered, if she fell -- Leia’s lips thinned. She couldn’t imagine it. She would never be so weak as to give in to a Dark anything.

Leia lifted her gaze back to his. “And I’d learn how to fight with a lightsaber?”

“I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “We don’t have one for you to train with -- _I_ don’t have one. And it’s a Jedi weapon anyway. Even the Emperor doesn’t have a lightsaber.”

“But if I were a Jedi?” she pressed. “Or in training for it?”

“Well -- once I build mine, I suppose you could borrow it to train with. If you were going to be a Jedi. And eventually you’d make your own. From what Obi-Wan told me, it’s a sort of rite of passage.”

“How long would it take me to learn something useful?”

“I had about two weeks before I targeted the Death Star,” said Luke. “Three or four weeks with Yoda when I had my first vision.”

“Six weeks,” she said to herself. “Well, that’s all the time we’ve got.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lando contacted us yesterday -- he sent us a map of Jabba’s palace, and told us that the best opportunity we’ll have is when they lower the security in six weeks.”

“Six weeks,” Luke repeated, half-unbelieving, and grinned widely. “That’s great. But we’ll need a plan. And you’ll have to make your decision fast. If you’re going to use the Force, you’ll need all the training you can get. If not -- well, anyone would be glad to have you at his back.”

“I know,” she said, and her lips seemed to curve of their own will. “Well, it’ll depend on what’s decided back at base. Really, I should just have everyone vote on this too!”

“Well, you’d be doing it for them.” He shrugged. “Why not?”

“I don’t usually make life decisions by committee.”

Luke, surprisingly -- pilots didn’t wind up in Rogue Squadron because of their obedient and accommodating personalities -- seemed to find this rather odd.

“But you’re right that they should know. I’ll see what everyone thinks, find out exactly what I need to be doing in the next month and a half, and -- I can think at you, can’t I? You’ll hear?”

His expression shifted from bemusement to horrified discomfort is under a second.

“Um,” he said. “Maybe?”

“That’s not very helpful, Luke.”

They started walking again, Leia almost jogging since Luke had forgotten to match his stride to hers, and seemed entirely preoccupied with scratching the palm of his right hand. His prosthetic hand, which she very much doubted had been programmed to itch.

“Luke,” she said, more forcefully.

“Yoda and Obi-Wan haven’t always been perfectly straightforward with me,” he admitted, slowing and lifting a branch. “I don’t think they wanted me to know you were Force-sensitive when they explained it to me, so my information may not be . . . perfect. They said you could hear me because I’m . . . uh . . . that you can only reach people you’re emotionally attached to.” He was bright red. “It doesn’t happen much among Jedi, of course, so I don’t know.”

“You’ve never done it with anyone else?” she asked, and tried to keep her own cheeks from flushing, without noticeable success.

“One person. But it’s -- different with them, and I suspect they’re stronger in the Force than anyone else I know of, so I think Force-sensitivity does have something to do with it. Maybe.”

He looked so anxious that she couldn’t help dropping her hand on his arm, her smile almost as awkward as his habitually was. “You’re my friend, Luke. I don’t think lack of attachment will be an issue, unless there’s a procedure I don’t know, or something. And if there is a problem, just contact me yourself, if you don’t hear from me within a few days.”

“All right,” he said, still nervous, but no longer looking as if he might bolt at a single quick movement. She let her hand drop.

“So,” she said briskly, “speaking of people contacting you, I’ve been thinking about your Imperial contact. Anything about the Sun Crusher, I need to know immediately. We can’t afford to have another Death Star on our hands. The rest -- ” She sighed. “Well, we’re used to sifting through partial data. I’ll need to speak with the generals, the admiralty, and Senator Mothma, but I think they’ll want any information we can get, especially since you can verify it. We’ll take care to consider the source.”

“And until then, what do I do?”

“Luke, you’re not a soldier any more,” said Leia. “I can’t command you. Even they can’t. If there’s anything that feels crucial for us to know, tell me. Otherwise, your decisions are up to you. Nobody can make them for you. You have to do what you think is right -- and answer for it when the time comes.”

“I think -- ” Luke’s brows furrowed, then his entire face smoothed over -- “I think I’ve got to fight the Empire any way I can. I’ll just have to stay on my guard.”

“Be careful, Luke,” she said, then tilted her head to the side, her gaze drifting up to the clumps of moss dangling overhead. “So, if this person contacted you this way, doesn’t that mean . . .?”

“I’m trying not to think too much about it,” said Luke.


	14. Chapter 14

Luke and Leia returned to the others, chattering as they walked. He could hardly believe she was here -- not a remote presence in his mind, but Leia herself, standing right next to him. He could see her face, expressions, gestures, hear her _voice_. Even his sense of her in the Force was powerful and immediate, her potential wrapped around her in bright tangled threads.

He didn’t know how he’d teach her. Just the idea of him telling Leia what to do seemed ludicrous. Well, he still didn’t know what she’d decide. Maybe she’d turn up the offer, or the Alderaanians would reject a Jedi queen, or -- something.

And maybe his father would take an oath of pacifism and retire to a moisture farm.

Luke sighed. He’d just have to figure out when the time came. In about two days. And then -- he couldn’t help smiling. Six weeks, and they’d have Han back, and they’d all be together again. If they didn’t get killed.

He put the thought out of his mind and ducked into the hut, where he and Leia found Yoda considerably more alert. He insisted on offering stew to Leia, who gamely swallowed it all -- Luke supposed that it was no great task to a woman who had, after all, sat down to dinners with far more dissimilar species than whatever Yoda was.

To Luke’s relief, she didn’t even seem to mind being interrogated while she ate, answering Yoda’s exhaustive questions with unusual patience. It didn’t seem quite so impossible that she’d once been an Imperial ambassador and senator.

It was mid-afternoon by the time Yoda dismissed them, and they walked around to meet up with the others -- who, an hour and a half later, were still cheerfully quarrelling. Luke and Leia joined them, and all five talked and laughed until Leia’s return could be no longer delayed. With visible reluctance, she announced that they had to return to the ship, and get to the base as soon as possible.

Chewie gave Luke another crushing hug, Artoo beeped sadly at Threepio, and Leia stood on tiptoe to kiss Luke’s cheek.

“May the Force be with you,” she said, her smile wry, and then she was leading Chewbacca and Threepio back through the undergrowth. Within a few minutes, they had gone.

Artoo, tottering at Luke’s side, gave a depressed whirr.

“Don’t worry,” said Luke, resting his hand on the droid’s dome. “I think he’ll be back soon.”

Yoda had gone to sleep again, so Luke wandered back into the mossy wood, trailed by Artoo. There wasn’t any point in procrastinating further -- or time for it. He perched in the air, folding his legs, crossing his arms, and steeling his nerves, and reached out.

“Father?”

He suppressed a shiver as his father’s presence flooded his mind. It was nothing like Leia’s -- crisp and overwhelming, though not as chilling as he remembered, either. Perhaps Vader wasn’t enraged at anyone, just at the moment. Still, Luke felt a moment of panic before he reminded himself that Vader was incapable of killing him, and evidently disinclined to harm him. This was his father: and he almost laughed that it had become a relief to remember that.

“Luke,” said Vader. “You passed your trials, then.”

“One of them. I -- ” Luke realized he’d been on the point of complaining to _Darth Vader_ , and cut himself off. “I have one more.”

“Unusual,” Vader commented. Luke had an impression of a polished, white bubble, suffocatingly close, and tried not to think about it. “Have you finally made your decision?”

He bit back an apology. He had to draw a line somewhere. “I’ve seen a bit of their base of operations, and I think I know where it is,” he said instead. “What do you need me to do?”

Luke expected that his acquiescence would be met with satisfaction or triumph. Instead, he only caught a hint of the relief he himself felt.

“You will need more than that -- including the data we have already managed to gather.”

“Probably,” Luke agreed, “but there’s a bounty on my head, remember?”

“I had not forgotten,” said Vader, in a tone which made it evident that this had done nothing to discourage his betrayal of the Emperor. “Fortunately -- in this case -- only a few people outside your Rebellion are capable of recognizing you, and none of them are aboard the _Executor_ at the moment.”

Luke swallowed. After years spent evading Imperial starships, voluntarily boarding the prize of the Empire was more than a little daunting. He couldn’t sense any plot beyond those he already knew about, but -- well, he’d made his choice. Super Star Destroyer or no Super Star Destroyer.

“All right,” he said. They quickly agreed upon a neutral location where they could meet, and then Vader’s voice and presence vanished. Luke dropped to the ground, rubbing his forehead.

Artoo gave a concerned beep.

“Looks like we’re going to have a bit of an adventure,” he told the droid. “Well, I’m sure you’ve always wanted to add a Super Star Destroyer to your databanks.”

Artoo squeaked, rolling backwards, then halted and made a small, intrigued sound. Luke laughed.

They returned to the hut, Artoo beeping a long line of incomprehensible questions at him, and found Yoda still asleep. Luke hesitated, then closed his eyes to see.

 _. . . Yoda, grumbling to himself, stirred a pot of stew with enough force to send a few droplets flying through Obi-Wan . . . Yoda hobbled outside, peering at the sky with an enigmatic expression . . . Obi-Wan spread his hands, saying, “If it’s that important to him, perhaps he **should** \-- ” while Yoda stared into the fire . . . Yoda hopping, with surprising nimbleness, into his bed, pulling a thin blanket over himself . . ._

Yoda wasn’t going to die in the next few days, at any rate. Luke sighed, hushed the droid, and packed as quietly as he could. Grabbing his datapad, he glanced back at the snoring Jedi Master, and dug out a flimsi sheet, scribbling out a vague explanation. Then he led Artoo out to the X-Wing.

It was only then that he remembered the panicked ghost who’d appeared on his last return. Luke, in the middle of hoisting Artoo into the ship, froze.

The droid teetered and gave a shriek of alarm.

“Sorry,” said Luke, settling Artoo in his compartment and throwing his thoughts into the empty air. “Grandmother? Can you hear me? Um -- Yoda will be able to tell you what I’m doing -- though he could have told you last time, too, so I don’t . . . I’m not sure how to leave a message for a ghost.”

“Talking to us is usually acceptable,” said Shmi, just as he felt her behind him. Luke started, almost tumbling off the ramp, and jumped down.

“Oh, good. I just wanted you to know, I’m going to be around Father again, so -- ”

Shmi looked at him steadily. “Anakin? What are you two doing now?”

Luke flushed and dropped his eyes, explaining in a few awkward and stumbling words. He half-wondered if he could make any plan sound ridiculously stupid, or just this one.

“I -- I know it’s not the wisest thing I’ve ever done,” he stammered, “but -- ”

Luke glanced up at his grandmother. She was smiling.

“Oh, I think it might be,” said Shmi. “Just remember all that you’ve learned.”

“Of course.”

Her tranquil gaze turned intense. “ _Everything_ you’ve learned.”

“I will,” said Luke, understanding -- though no less anxious, for that. He fought the urge to rub his wrist. “Grandmother, um, is there anything I can . . . ?”

“You can tell him _hello_ ,” Shmi said tartly.

Luke laughed. “All right.”

He sprang into the X-Wing, and settled into his chair, buckling his helmet on and starting the engine. He’d just reached down to close the door when she called out again.

“Luke, wait!”

In a blur of not-quite-motion, she was just under the door, her fingers closing on his wrist like a cold breeze. “Tell your father I love him,” she said.

 _Well, **that** won’t be awkward_ , he thought, but smiled reassuringly at her.

“I’ll tell him,” he said.

 

* * *

 

 

Thirty hours later, Luke stood in an abandoned base that had been in ruins since, apparently, the Republic’s last war. His eyes were fixed on the colossal starship flying overhead. Artoo, with a whirr that more nearly approximated a moan, tottered closer to him.

He felt the shuttle approaching before he saw it, touching down just opposite Luke’s X-Wing. Artoo screeched.

“It’s all right. It’s just Father,” Luke said, and fought off a hysterical giggle.

The shuttle’s ramp lowered and Vader strode down, looking -- well, like Vader. Any urge to laugh evaporated. Artoo backed behind his legs.

“Luke,” Vader said shortly. His masked head turned this way and that in apparent bewilderment, which Luke -- as he generally did around his father -- fully shared. “Where are your belongings?”

 _Burned by stormtroopers two and a half years ago_ , Luke thought.

“I don’t have any,” he said. “Except this droid.”

Artoo wobbled forward, his sensors spinning. Man and droid considered one another for a moment.

“He’s a little unwieldy, but I’m not going anywhere without him,” Luke added. “He’s not an ordinary astrodroid -- without him, I’d probably have died years ago.”

Vader continued to gaze at Artoo. “I am . . . aware of this droid’s capabilities,” he said finally, and lifted his mask to stare at his son. “How did you find him?”

Luke hesitated, then shrugged. He didn’t suppose it mattered any more. “Uncle Owen bought him from some Jawas, and he turned out to be carrying the Death Star plans.”

“He _what?_ ”

“Leia smuggled him out. But you already know that,” Luke said, perplexed.

Artoo rolled a cautious foot forward, whirring up at Vader, who clasped his hands behind his back.

“I did not know it was this particular droid.”

Every conversation with Vader was a bizarre conversation, Luke thought, but this one might be the oddest yet. “You’ve . . . ah, met him before?”

“Of course I’ve met him,” Vader said impatiently. “I _made_ him.”

Luke’s mouth dropped open. The droid burst into a beeping, grinding, whirring, screeching cacophony of sound that might have meant anything, but Luke felt certain would be best translated as _What?!_ His own mind was furiously cycling between _how_ and _but_ and _why_ until it settled on a complete thought: _well, that explains a lot._

“You -- but then, how did Leia . . . oh.” He suspected it’d be unwise to mention the murdered best friend whose assassination had provoked Anakin Skywalker’s final step to becoming Darth Vader.

“Bring him with you,” said Vader, and turned on his heel, gesturing for them to follow him. Somehow, Artoo managed to look torn, his sensors swivelling between his former and present masters.

Luke resolved the little droid’s conflict by hurrying after his father, lifting Artoo over the last of the debris and into the shuttle. Once he’d buckled himself into the seat beside his father’s, the door slammed closed with a soft _whoosh_. Luke tried not to read it as a portent of doom.

Vader steered the shuttle without a moment’s error or hesitation, the _Executor_ only growing more impossibly daunting as they drew nearer. Luke tore his awestruck gaze away from the miles and miles of starship, forcing himself to think about anything else, look at anything else. His eyes fell on the control panel of the shuttle, which seemed very much like any other control panel, on the wheel under his father’s gloved hands.

He could tell both hands were prosthetics, though it didn’t seem to have impaired Vader’s abilities any. It had taken Luke hours just to hold a stylus again.

 _Did Mother fly like this, or did I just get it from you?_ he thought. He couldn’t imagine mentioning his mother to Vader. There was something oddly taboo about Arissa and Amidala, who had once been _Mama_ and _Aunt Padmé_ to him, just as there was about Obi-Wan. It was as if Anakin’s fall had been so monumental that it had absorbed not only himself, but everyone he loved, warping their very existences -- Arissa’s, Amidala’s, Obi-Wan’s, Luke’s -- around the shell he’d left behind.

 _He’s just a person_ , Luke told himself. _Everybody forgets that. But he’s not really anything more. Or less._

Vaguely, he wondered if the hands even looked normal under the gloves. Maybe; should Luke be wearing a glove over his? Was there some kind of cyborg protocol?

He couldn’t imagine asking about that, either.

Luke suppressed a sigh and returned his eyes to the _Executor_. He couldn’t help clenching his fists as it swallowed up the viewscreen, and then the entire shuttle, its tractor beam dragging them to a standstill in one of the undoubtedly numerous docking bays.

He and Artoo followed Vader off the shuttle and out of the bay, the droid emitting a nonstop string of worried beeps, and Luke trying not to itch his shoulders. If somebody did think of attacking him, he reminded himself, he’d sense it before it happened -- and besides, Vader would kill anyone who harmed him.

It wasn’t much comfort. He kept his eyes on his father, anyway, and tried not to act as if _Rebel_ were emblazoned across his chest in huge blinking letters.

A very long walk, seven elevators, and no explanations later, Vader led Luke and Artoo into a dark, quiet room full of blinking screens and flickering holograms. It was empty except for one young man, who peered up at one of the screens and tapped something into his datapad.

The doors shut behind them, almost silently, and the man started before Luke could.

“Lord Vader, I didn’t -- ” he began, blinked once at Luke and Artoo, then returned his attention to Vader -- “have any success on Alzhei, so I decided I’d be of more use here and returned a few days earlier than you suggested.”

The man struck Luke as -- not familiar, exactly. He didn’t know him. But it seemed strange that he should be here. It also seemed strange that he should be alive, if he had a habit of defying Vader’s suggestions.

“There’s no need for subterfuge,” said Vader. “Luke, this is Daine Jir. He will be cooperating with you. I need to speak to my admirals.”

He swept out, and Jir extended his hand to Luke.

“Commander Skywalker. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person.”

Luke hesitated, then shook it. “Just Skywalker. I’ve resigned my commission.”

“Oh, I hadn’t heard that,” said Jir. “But it’s almost impossible to get good reports out of the Rebellion. Your people are very closed-mouth, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Luke said, and glanced around the room. “What exactly do you do?”

“Whatever your father tells me to do,” Jir said cheerfully. “A bit of everything, really. I used to be a commander myself -- in the Starfleet, of course -- but once everybody assumed I’d been killed when you blew up the Death Star, it became useful for me to handle more delicate matters.”

“You’re a spy,” said Luke.

Jir laughed. “Among other things. So, I’m guessing Lord Vader’s brought you up-to-date, if we wants me helping you?”

“He’s told me about the Sun Crusher, if that’s what you mean. Is that what all this is about?” He waved his hand at the computers and holograms.

“We don’t know. The Emperor keeps most of his projects quiet, even the harmless ones, and anything on this scale is going to catch someone’s attention unless the components are constructed separately. So at this point, our information is . . . less than clear. It can be difficult to tell whether we’re looking at schematics for part of a star-destroying superweapon or plans for the Interplanetary Flower Festival.”

Luke walked over to the line of computers, examining the charts laid out on the screens. Most of them looked and felt unfamiliar, though he studied them anyway, ignoring Jir’s curious gaze. Halfway down the line, he stopped. “This one. What is it?”

“We’re not sure,” said Jir. “It’s still in the early stages. Some kind of base getting built out in the Alcar IV system -- you might not have heard of it, but -- ”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“Oh. Well, normally it’d be too minor to bother Lord Vader with, but the size of the shield projector is ridiculous for a base of that size. And hardly anyone’s talking, even by the usual standards. All I’ve heard is that there’ve been some problems with the construction of the base.”

“I’ve seen it before. I . . . what have they done about the Wookiees?”

“The natives?” Jir shrugged. “As far as I’ve heard, they’re friendly enough. Stay out of the way. A few of the higher-ups tried to blame them, but -- ”

“They’re going to build part of the Sun Crusher there,” Luke told him. “I’ll need to know everything about it.”

Jir briefly raised his eyebrows, but seemed less surprised than intrigued. Of course, years of service to Darth Vader probably would wear away the usual skepticism.

For the next twenty minutes, Luke stood with his fingers tapping against his arm, listening attentively to the spy. He had little concrete information -- just rumour and conjecture, and these rough plans. Even these were better than the next-to-nothing he’d had before, but Luke knew he’d need more. Perhaps he could use the data, however haphazard it might be, to guide his meditation. It’d only turned up a little, so far.

The doors slid open and Luke turned, in some relief, to face his father.

“My lord,” said Jir, unrelentingly chipper, “Co -- ah, Jedi Skywalker has determined that the Endor project _is_ a construction site for the Sun Crusher.”

“Endor,” Vader repeated. He glanced at Luke, who gave a small nod. “Very well. You are dismissed, Jir.”

Jir bowed and marched out without the slightest attempt at unobtrusiveness. He was either a very bad spy, Luke thought, or a very good one. Given that he personally served Darth Vader and seemed in good health, the latter seemed rather more probable.

“I’ve seen hardly anything else,” Luke said immediately. “A few of the corridors, some of the engineers complaining. That’s all. I’ll try again with this, but -- ”

“We both will,” said Vader.

“Now?” Luke suppressed a cringe and gestured at the blinking machines. “I mean, here?”

“I have a room set apart for meditation. Follow me.”

At least this wasn’t especially menacing, as his father’s plans for him went. Also thankfully, the meditation chamber adjoined this room; Luke had half expected to spend another hour wandering about the ship.

The chamber was dominated by a pod -- hyperbaric, Luke assumed, and briefly wondered about the extent of his father’s injuries before adding it to the list of things he wouldn’t ask about under any circumstances.

Vader ignored the pod and strode towards a large window, which took up most of its wall and, at the moment, showed only the blackness of space. A thick mat, nearly as long as the window, had been placed in front of it.

Vader knelt on the mat and after a moment’s vacillation, Luke did the same thing. It was more comfortable than the swamp, anyway, he told himself, and tried not to consider what it might mean, sharing his legacy from his father _with_ his father. Luke closed his eyes, forced himself to release his anxiety, and let go of conscious thought.

The Force nearly consumed him. Not even the Dark Side. The Living Force itself, clearer, more expansive, more powerful, just _more_ , than he’d felt even at his most uncontrolled. But it wasn’t uncontrolled at all. Everything was sharp and crisp: less the vastness of a desert than of all its grains of sand, distinct and uncountable.

Luke’s eyes flew open, wide and unseeing, and he gasped for air, clinging to the Force even while he tried to keep himself from being absorbed into it. He was himself; he could feel Vader, separate-but-connected, _here_ , even his command faltering a little before the onslaught, and then firming.

He focused his attention on the Sun Crusher -- or Vader did -- or they both did. It wasn’t important. Worlds spun before his eyes, and he found himself pulling the relevant out from the trivial with an alarmingly small exertion of effort; it was almost as if they were separating _themselves_ out. For the first time, Luke felt not as if he were surrendering himself to the Force, struggling to guide its control over him, but directing it, _commanding_ it.

He saw a system in the Middle Rim, a single star -- yellow dwarf -- four planets -- two gas giants, two terrestrial -- one an inhospitable red, one blue -- masses of water, enough to drown Tatooine -- a bright, refurbished facility of some kind.

Five more systems, five more suspicious bases, and then a small, forest-covered moon revolving around a massive planet -- Wookiees watching as Imperial cruisers flew overhead -- “distance may be too much,” said an officer to a number of others, who seemed to be subservient to him --

 _if he’s the commander, we’ll need to know --_

The same officer sighed as a group of chief engineers talked about a near-explosion, adding, “Commander Llang, this location is almost impossible” -- stormtroopers glancing nervously over their shoulders -- an engineer in a baggy, crinkling suit putting a heavy helmet over his head, saying, “I’ll check for leaks here, here, and here,” jabbing his finger at a large, detailed schematic --

The low light of the meditation chamber washed over Luke’s vision. He blinked, taking a deep breath -- and realized that neither his nor his father’s had sped up at all. Their bodies didn’t seem to have registered the strain; they weren’t even tired. They could do it again, track down anything else they wanted, and they probably wouldn’t be tired then either. They could do --

Anything?

 _Join me_ , Vader had once said, _and together, we can rule the galaxy as father and son._

He was right, if not in the way he’d meant. They _could._


	15. Chapter 15

Luke conscientiously did not mention his epiphany, and did his best not to think about it, either. So what if galactic domination was a perfectly realistic goal? He still wanted no part of it, and silenced the voice that suggested they couldn’t possibly be worse than Palpatine.

Vader, rather to his surprise, didn’t mention the power of their combined efforts either. He seemed more grimly satisfied than pleased. Maybe even perturbed at something -- and Luke had the feeling it wasn’t their potential omniscience.

They returned to the data room -- Luke didn’t know what else to call it, since Skulduggery Central seemed unlikely to meet with approval -- and corrected the rough schematics with the information from their vision. He hadn’t doubted that they’d shared it, but if he had, all doubts would have vanished after he saw that their memories matched up in every particular.

He didn’t know if he’d ever be happy that his father was . . . who he was, but sometimes Luke was very glad to be strong in the Force.

Afterwards, Vader began to hammer out a plan.

“That won’t work,” Luke said. Artoo whirred and rolled behind his legs. Vader looked at them, his silent, reddish-black gaze ominous.

Luke didn’t know if he’d lost all sense of self-preservation, had too many imminent dangers to worry about, or had simply ceased to fear his father at all, but he returned the stare without even a flicker of anxiety.

“I don’t know how to do Obi-Wan’s trick with the weak-minded, so I can’t get in that way. Assuming the guards are weak-minded.”

Not that it was much of an assumption.

“He hasn’t taught you?”

Luke gave him an incredulous glance. “He’s _dead._ I don’t suppose you remember everyone you’ve killed, but -- ”

Vader waved this aside as unimportant. “He is not dead.”

“What?”

“You told me that some Jedi continue to live beyond their natural ends, as my -- ” Vader paused, then with a shake of his head, continued -- “mother has. Clearly you’ve encountered one of these Jedi, clearly you’ve continued to train with a teacher, and Obi-Wan himself warned me that he would become more powerful if I killed him. He was, unfortunately, right. I seem to have made him immortal.”

“They don’t live,” Luke protested. “I didn’t say that. They’re dead, it’s just . . .”

“Anyone who walks and talks is not dead.”

“Well, when -- ” Luke caught himself. “We can argue about metaphysics later. No, as a matter of fact, nobody has ever taught me that trick.”

Vader’s sigh was audible, even through the respirator. “ _I_ will teach you, then.”

“Um, no,” said Luke, and hastily added, “I won’t learn it from anyone. I’ll kill when I have to, but this -- I don’t want to do it. I don’t want to even know how to do it.”

“You are foolish to throw away any possible advantage you might have,” Vader said, irritation leaking through the vocoder.

Luke’s eyes narrowed. “I think we’ve had this conversation before. When I jumped down the reactor shaft rather than accept an _advantage_ I don’t want. I haven’t changed, Father.”

He felt more than saw -- or heard -- his father’s incredulity. Luke flushed, but didn’t correct himself. He hadn’t changed about _that_ , anyway.

“Using the Force for persuasion is hardly the same as accepting the power of the Dark Side,” said Vader. “As I’m sure Obi-Wan would tell you, if you asked him.”

“I’m sure he would, too,” said Luke. “And _you_ told me I had to start relying on my own judgment when I make decisions. That’s what I’m doing. If I get cornered in there -- ” he gestured at the schematics -- “I know I’ll use any tool I’ve got. I’d rather not have that one.”

“You would place some personal discomfort above the lives of billions, if not trillions, of people?”

And that, Luke thought, was Obi-Wan’s star pupil speaking. He didn’t quite have the nerve to say it. Instead, he shrugged.

“I guess so,” he said. “I’m not going to start rearranging people’s minds because _maybe_ I _might_ find it useful at some point. It’s not like it’s something you can unlearn. If that’s selfish, then -- maybe I am. And I don’t see what _I’d_ get out of it, or anything else you’d want to teach me.”

 _You’re my father and I love you_ , he realized, torn between dread and -- oddly -- relief. _But nothing’s worth turning **into** you._

“Ah,” said Vader. “I understand.”

 _No, Father. You really, really don’t._

“Very well. What do you want in exchange?”

Luke very nearly smacked himself. Instead he rubbed his temples. “I don’t want _anything_ that much. Look, I’ll find another way -- ”

Vader turned to stare at the schematics for a full minute, his hands locked behind his back. Finally, he said, “Not the Dark Side. As I told you before, it is not crucial at this point. But you will need all the skills of a Jedi.”

 _I’m already finishing my training_ , Luke wanted to say. _I have a teacher._ If Yoda had thought he should know anything else, he’d have taught him before sending him after the crystals. Certainly before assigning Leia to him.

Except -- Yoda was dying. How long had he known? Awhile, anyway. If he _had_ known he was running out of time to turn Luke into a proper Jedi, then maybe he’d only taught him what was most important. Hadn’t he said something about his other students healing? Luke had never learned that.

He bit his lip. He’d always been grateful for his first training with Obi-Wan, even though it’d only lasted a couple of weeks; he wouldn’t know anything about fighting without that. And he’d needed it; he was fighting in a war, great or not. It seemed better to receive both points of view -- the guru’s and the general’s -- and find some kind of middle ground.

Still, learning from General Kenobi was one thing, learning from Darth Vader quite another. Even assuming he’d keep his word. Though he was the only one of the three who’d been consistently honest with him, so maybe he would. But still.

“I . . .”

“I _am_ a Jedi Knight,” Vader reminded him, sounding very nearly amused. “And trained by your own master. Obi-Wan taught me all he knew -- anything he taught you, he taught me first, and likely more thoroughly.”

“I know,” said Luke, and thought, _if he trains me in the Force -- the Living Force, not the Dark Side -- he might very well have to use it himself. He might --_

For once, he couldn’t turn to anyone for advice. Shmi and Obi-Wan couldn’t be here even if they felt so inclined. Yoda was off in Dagobah, and probably sleeping anyway. There was nothing but the Force, which seemed ambivalent -- heavy with anticipation as it spun between them, but silent. Luke felt rather as if he were teetering on a knife’s edge, the whole galaxy pausing to see which way he fell.

“I don’t want anything in particular,” he said.

“Consider it a debt, then,” said Vader, impatiently. “I wish to train you, for more reasons than this particular mission."

"Right, overthrowing the Emperor."

"The Jedi existed to guard peace, justice, and order throughout the galaxy," Vader said, "but they allowed themselves to be corrupted, and sold their swords to the highest bidder. They became mercenaries and traitors. I have been the only true Jedi left in the galaxy for eighteen years." He finally turned from the computer. "I would prefer it if I were not."

Luke, with some effort, kept his face expressionless.

"But I don't -- " He stopped. "All right. Suppose I let you train me. As a favour. Without the Dark Side. For peace and order. When -- how . . . there are things I have to do, especially in the next few weeks. I'm sure you're busy with whatever it is you do when you're not hunting me down."

"I am," said Vader. "I am also sure that we can both spare a few hours each week for your training -- at least until you rescue Solo."

Luke stared at him.

"You are not the only one with spies in the Hutt's palace, Luke."

"And you're not --" Luke hesitated.

"I do not concern myself with the well-being of slavers," Vader said coldly. "And it will serve as an exercise for this." He nodded at the plans for the Sun Crusher base.

 _It'd help rescue Han._

"All right," said Luke, and hoped he hadn't done something incredibly stupid. "I'll do it."

 _And hope your mother and my friends will recognize me by this time next year._

"Good." Vader, for once, sounded distinctly pleased; Luke rather suspected he was smiling as he walked over to one of the holographic generators.

"But I don't have a lightsaber or anything. I've harvested crystals, but I don't know how -- "

Something long and silver flew towards him. Luke instinctively caught it, his fingers closing around the familiar grooves of his lightsaber -- Anakin's lightsaber. Luke looked at it for a moment. Then he slung it back on the hook where he'd carried it for two years, and lifted his eyes to his father's mask.

"Thank you," he said, and even he didn't know exactly what he meant.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Within an hour of returning to base, Leia had asked the other Alderaanians to join her in the war room. She felt certain the request sounded awkward -- she didn't want to command them, but she wasn't used to asking favours, either.

She wasn't sure what she expected, but everyone from an elderly retired general down to a twelve-year-old refugee appeared within ten minutes of the meeting time. Most were early, seeming more curious than anything else.

Leia walked up to the podium, her back ramrod straight, waited for everyone to settle down, and explained the situation.

"It's dangerous," she concluded, "and I won't _ask_ anyone to take the risk -- but if some of you are willing, I'll personally fight to establish a settlement, I'll live there myself, and I'll do my best to provide a home for every Alderaanian left in the galaxy." She took a deep breath. "I don't want to influence you one way or the other -- "

"What about my sister?" asked a young woman in the front. "She was due back on Aldera two days afterwards, but I never -- "

"You'll find my son?" a man said, even more loudly.

A roar of inquiries followed until Leia held up her hand. "I'm going to look for all our families and friends," she said. "It might take time to get started, and I can't promise that I'll find them all, or that I won't -- or that something won't happen, but I will look, no matter what's decided about Carathis."

"I say we call it New Alderaan," someone called out, and shouts of approval went up.

"The Imperial project," Leia began.

"Damn the Empire!" said a teenage boy and an elderly woman. Almost everyone laughed, but the general stood, and the room quieted once more.

"The princess has a point," he said. "We've lost our home and our families once already. Setting up shop next door to a secret Imperial project is incredibly dangerous. We don't know how long they'll be there, but they could very easily find us."

"A few months -- if all goes well," said Leia. "It could be years if it doesn't."

Most of their faces, she couldn't help but notice, looked decidedly obstinate. They debated for another hour, Leia not so much directing the argument as mediating it.

"I don't expect consensus, or an immediate decision," she said finally. "I realize it's a monumental thing to consider, so we'll vote in two days. And --" she sighed -- "there's another thing."

The last few mutters fell silent.

"Last week, I didn't think I'd be able to protect a possible settlement in any meaningful way. But I've recently discovered that I --" She didn't even know how to say it. "Well, I've seen Commander Skywalker, who I think most of you know about."

"He has a laser sword and a fake hand and he blew up the Death Star," said another boy.

"That's the one," said Leia, smiling. "He's training, right now, to be a Jedi Knight, and recently discovered that -- well, that I could become one, too. While it's my own decision, I feel you should know that I may very well --"

The room very nearly exploded with shouts and cheers. It was ten minutes before she even managed to make herself heard again.

"I don't know exactly what I'll be able to do," she said. "If I do it all, that is. But if I accept this . . . opportunity, I will use every power I possess to defend you."

Even General Pralayo seemed a bit awestruck. "We've never had a Jedi queen before," he said thoughtfully, and cries of _Jedi queen!_ promptly echoed around the room.

"I haven't been much of a leader at all," said Leia. She set her jaw. "But if you want that to change, it will."

Two days later, they voted while she met with more refugees, her muscles aching from smiling for five hours straight. It took another day before the results to be counted and sent to her datapad. Leia took one glance at them and couldn't help but smile again.

"Eighty-six percent support establishing a settlement on Carathis," Leia reported to Mon Mothma. "Seventy-nine percent intend to live there if it is established. Ninety-four percent support searching for other Alderaanians."

Mothma's thin eyebrows arched. "And?"

"Ninety-one percent agree that I should train as a Jedi."

"I wasn't aware that was a subject of the vote."

"It wasn't," said Leia. "They typed it under the _other_ heading."

One of the admirals made a muffled sound. Leia ignored him and kept her eyes fixed on the former senator.

"This is a considerable risk," said Mothma. "However, the purely material cost is negligible; you would easily have been paid that much personally, if you had accepted any reasonable payment for your services. We cannot afford to take responsibility for failure or success of this endeavour. If you truly intend it, however, I see no justifiable reason to stop you or withhold the recompense you have so thoroughly earned."

Leia bowed. "Thank you."

"Moreover, we will consider the information you have provided. If they really are building another superweapon, it may be convenient to have you so near."

 _Convenient_ was not the first word that sprang to Leia's mind. She bit her tongue, conscious that the day when she managed to get every concession she wanted -- from Luke maintaining contact with his mysterious informer to funding for a colony that might very well be doomed -- was not a day when she should test anyone's tolerance.

Nodding, she turned to go, only to be halted by Mothma calling after her.

"Princess Leia?"

Leia swivelled around to look back at her. "Yes?"

"It is not, strictly speaking, my concern, but I would be interested in knowing if we may expect to have _two_ Jedi Knights on our side."

She'd thought about it for the last four days. She'd dreamed of stopping blaster fire with her mind, and of finding a red lightsaber blade -- hers -- in Han's chest. She'd imagined rescuing him from Jabba's palace, the look on his face when they told him. She'd considered Luke's second offer -- the powers without the commitments or duties of a Jedi.

Then she'd rejected it. If she were going to do this, she'd do it properly. The whole thing. Vows, responsibilities, weapons.

It wasn't much of a choice, really. She had to do everything she could to more effectively fight the Empire and protect her colony. She didn't like the idea that her abilities were being controlled by something beyond herself, without her knowledge or consent; she _did_ like the idea of becoming a sort of paladin-sorceress.

“You will if I have anything to say about it,” said Leia.

When she returned to her rooms, she stopped only to greet Chewie and Threepio, then flung herself on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She’d had so much of her life planned out from childhood. Of course she’d run into unexpected horrors on her way, but she’d always known what way she’d _be_ on. Now --

Well, now it was different, and she’d manage that too. Leia sat up.

 _Luke?_ she thought. Nothing happened.

She squeezed her eyes shut and remembered what it’d felt like, when he’d spoken to her. Like she’d see him right behind her if she turned to look.

Attachment had something to do with it. And the Force had something to do with it. Leia frowned, trying to concentrate on something she couldn’t even pin down.

 _I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you._ She laughed aloud, ignoring the confused looks she got from Threepio and Chewbacca.

“Luke,” she said again.

“Leia?”

She gasped for breath. It wasn’t just bizarre, hearing him like that; it was exhausting. “I’m coming back to Dagobah and I want to be a Jedi,” she said quickly. She felt a bit as if someone had punched her in the chest, and possibly broken some of her ribs in the process.

“That’s wonderful!”

“Yes, but I -- ” Her head spun and each breath ached. “There are other things I’ll be doing too, so I can’t be there all the time. But -- ”

“That’s fine,” said Luke. “I -- I have things to do too.”

“I’ll be -- ”

He was gone. The burning in her head and chest vanished, but her arms and legs felt more liquid than solid. Leia fell back and promptly went to sleep.


	16. Chapter 16

Luke walked through a wall and found himself staring out a large window, at an unfamiliar expanse of water, backed by lush green hills. In the distance, he could see a massive waterfall. Puzzled, he turned around, and took in an equally unfamiliar room, painted a warm, cheerful yellow. A woman was sleeping on the bed, her tangled blonde hair dark with sweat, one arm flung over her face, while a medical droid ran a scanner over her body.

Two more droids stood on each side of a large cradle, clucking concernedly. Luke couldn't quite see the baby within, but this was his past; it had to be him. He didn't bother stepping any closer.

"The blood loss is significant, but not dangerous," said the first. "I estimate the probability of death at three hundredths of a percent."

"What do you suggest, Denine?"

"Several days of rest should be sufficient. Inform her that --"

The door opened, and a man in a grey officer's uniform stepped through. Denine turned towards him.

"You are not Anakin Skywalker, Arya Nellith, Aerus Nellith, Xanetia Nlai, Obi-Wan Kenobi, or Padmé Amidala," he announced. "Your entry is unauthorized."

"Get out of my way," the officer said impatiently. A lightsaber sprang to life in his hand.

"Your entry is unauthorized," said the droid again, then collapsed into a heap of metal as the officer sliced through him.

One of the remaining droids said, "Oh, dear."

The other gave a loud, mechanical screech, but neither moved from their posts. The officer -- Jedi? -- promptly cut them down, as well, then slung his lightsaber back on his belt and reached inside the cradle.

The woman --  _Mother_ , Luke thought, she couldn't be anyone else -- stirred and murmured something, her voice low and exhausted.

The strange Jedi straightened and walked to the bed, leaning over Arissa and whispering something to her. Luke's eyes narrowed, just as someone tapped on the door and pushed it open.

"Arissa? Are you all right?" called a woman, poking her dark head in. The Jedi-officer spun around and even Luke, frozen in sheer confusion, took a step forward. Without the layers of paint or elaborate clothes, it took him a moment to identify her as Senator Amidala.

She, however, seemed to instantly recognize the intruder. "Captain Ambra?" Her eyes fell on the droids and she stepped all the way through, one hand on her blaster. "What are you doing?"

His only response was to raise his lightsaber again, the blade humming to life.

Amidala's eyes widened.  _"Traitor,"_ she hissed, and pulled the trigger.

Ambra blocked the shot, sending the blast into the wall just above the cradle. A baby began to scream, and Ambra rushed towards the cradle, deflecting Amidala's fire even as he grabbed the shrieking infant with his free hand, holding it against his chest. Amidala hesitated for a moment, long enough for him to reach the window and jab his lightsaber into the glass. Her next shot hit him in the shoulder and he gave a shout of pain, but jumped through, the baby still shrieking --

The X-Wing's control panel beeped, and Luke jerked himself out of his vision, back into mundane reality. What passed for mundane reality with him, anyway.

He checked the reading -- they were approaching Dagobah -- and looked down at Artoo.

"That was . . . really strange," he said. He'd looked into his past more out of habit than any particular curiosity, practicing for practice's sake. He certainly hadn't expected . . . whatever that had been. _I was kidnapped? Or something? But I was with Father later, so --_

Mildly intrigued, he considered the conundrum for a moment, then put it aside. He had more important things to worry about right now: Leia was here.

  


* * *

 

“It’s not working,” said Leia, for the fourth time. “I don’t feel anything.”

“That’s all right,” Luke told her, infuriatingly calm -- and even more infuriatingly, sitting on nothing but air. She wanted to tell herself that she wasn’t failing, it was just tricks and nonsense, but . . .  _air._ “It takes awhile --”

She suppressed the urge to tug on her hair. “We don’t have awhile! Five weeks -- ”

“Leia, you can’t think about that.” He dropped to the ground. “You’ll never be calm enough to touch the Force if you’re worrying about Jabba.”

Leia folded her arms. Yoda had told her the same thing, when she’d talked to him before Luke’s arrival.  _Put this aside, you must, if are to be a Jedi. Be calm, passive --_

Passive.  Ha. 

“I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like,” she said. “Feel it flowing through me? What does that even mean?”

“It’s hard to explain.” Luke rubbed his thumb and middle finger together, exactly as he’d done with his flesh hand. Sometimes she wondered if he remembered that it wasn’t. But then, she didn’t know how  _that_ felt either. It had become increasingly apparent that, as much as he still obviously cared for her, he’d grown apart from her in odd ways, too. 

Maybe this, she thought, would change that, pull them into the same world. And maybe --

Well, maybe it wouldn’t. 

“That’s how Obi-Wan always talked about it,” Luke said finally. “Honestly, it never made that much sense to me either. I can feel it . . . passing through me, I guess, but it feels more like --” He lifted his hands, then turned them to stare down at his veins. “More like fire.”

Leia winced. “That sounds painful.”

“It isn’t.” He looked over at her, eyes bright and cheeks flushed. “Just -- intense. It’s hard to get started in the first place, and hard to control after that, and it can destroy you in a flash, if you’re not careful. But it’s immensely powerful and alive and . . .” He shrugged, with an almost shy smile that was, somehow, nothing like his other almost-shy smiles. “There’s nothing like it.”

“And you can see it? Right now?” Leia almost looked around, just to make sure she hadn’t missed obvious wreaths of flames. 

“Mm-hmm.” Luke tilted his head to the side. “Maybe Yoda’s way would be better for you.”

“Yoda’s?” she repeated, suspicious. “What do you mean?”

He grinned. “Catch me if you can,” he said, and bolted towards the trees.

“Luke! What are you --” She sighed and ran into the wood, frowning when she couldn’t hear any footsteps. She could see his prints in the mud, however, so she had no difficulty following his trail. Leia raced after him, jumping over roots and brambles, ducking under low branches, speeding up as she considered the several seconds and seven inches he had on her. 

A few minutes later, she heard the sound of laughing and burst out into the open air, almost sliding into a deep ravine. 

“Just like old times, isn’t it?” said Luke, standing on the opposite side, his voice clear. He wasn’t even panting. 

An enormous tree had fallen over the ravine; Leia could clearly see that it was rotting clear through.

She glared at him. “Luke Skywalker, I  _swear_ \--”

He darted further along and Leia only hesitated a moment before stepping onto the tree trunk and then running along it as lightly as she could, trusting more to her instincts than to her senses. She felt briefly disoriented, but refused to allow herself to be distracted by it.

Leia was gasping for breath as she jumped off the log, her legs rubbery, but she forced herself to run even faster. Whatever bizarre test this was, she refused to fail it --

Her eyes were wide open, trying to see everything, even though it was impossible to make anything out. Then, with another burst of speed, she felt her breath slow and deepen, her pounding heart quiet, her skin cool. The blur of green resolved into individual trees, rocks, skittering animals, she really did see everything, and hear everything, and feel it all around her, and she could see-hear-feel Luke just ahead too --

Leia skidded to a halt as she burst into the clearing where Luke sat, perched on an exposed root and tossing a rock back and forth. That odd confusion of senses vanished.

She took a few deep breaths, necessitated more by force of habit than her body’s needs. 

“What was  that? ” she demanded.

Luke dropped the rock and grinned. “Now you know what it feels like.”

“That --  _that_ was the Force? That . . . everything?”

“Best description I’ve heard so far,” he said, looking far too amused. Leia pushed him off the root and he let himself fall, still laughing.

“You could tell when I -- that’s what you were waiting for?” she asked, waving her hand. “You felt it?”

“Yeah.” Luke sprang up, still grinning. It was funny; all this had made him so different, but right now it made him seem more like himself than he had been in years. 

Then it struck her -- except for his elderly mentors, she realized, he wouldn’t have felt another Jedi of any kind,  _ever_. Well, except Vader, who hardly counted. She remembered Luke’s face when he’d offered to teach her even if she didn’t decide to be a Jedi.  _I’d just -- rather you did._

Leia couldn’t help but smile back. “So, running does that?”

“No, just running at superhuman speeds,” said Luke. “That’s how Yoda trained me. If you’re trying something you can do normally, most likely you’ll do it normally. Doing things that are difficult -- or impossible -- without the Force, well, that makes you use the Force. It doesn’t have to be running, though. He mostly had me stand on my thumb.”

“Your . . . thumb,” Leia repeated.

“It’s easier than it sounds. I’ll show you back at the swamp.”

She just shook her head. 

In fact, it  _was_ easier than it sounded -- which in no way translated to  _easy_.  Just  _possible_. Leia managed it on her seventh try, again feeling that odd, muddled everythingness around her. For about four seconds. She barely landed on her feet and lifted her eyes to Luke’s.

“Look, I know I’m supposed to put it aside and so on, but I’m not going to master this in the next few weeks. And that’s not even considering the time that I can’t be here.”

“Of course you’re not,” Luke told her. “I’ve been thinking about it, and really, we’re not trying to make you a Jedi Knight in five weeks. Just a good enough warrior to fight Jabba and his goons. So you need to practice this to get a grasp on the Force, but after that, I’ll teach you more -- immediately useful things, all right?”

Leia eyed him. “What do you mean?”

He dropped his omnipresent bag from his shoulder and dug around inside. After a few seconds, his hand emerged, fingers curled around a long, silver,  _familiar_ cylinder. She stared.

“You made your lightsaber?” She considered it. “It looks exactly like your old one.”

“It  _is_ my old one,” said Luke. “That is, my father’s. I got it back when I was away. I need to study how it’s made to make my own, and I’ll need it for . . . things, but you can train with it, too.”

“Can I . . .?”

“Sure.” He handed it over to her. Another time, Leia might have been embarrassed that her hand was shaking, a little. She reached up to flick the button -- it had been made for a much larger hand than hers -- and watched, wide-eyed, as the blue-white blade zapped out, humming as she swung it back and forth. 

Leia let out a short, quick breath, and hit the button again. The blade vanished.

“That’s . . . thanks,” she said.

She threw herself into her exercises for the next two days, then headed off for her work on Carathis.

“I should be back in four or five days,” she said, rather grateful that Yoda was sleeping. He generally regarded her with approval, pointedly praising her discipline, but he’d railed against her divided loyalties more than once. “I’ll keep practicing.”

“Of course,” said Luke, and smiled. “Don’t worry. I have somewhere to go too.”

Although he’d managed to pass on some more information about troop movements and rivalries between the moffs and admirals, he remained frustratingly vague about his own activities. She didn’t doubt his  _loyalty_ , but his plans tended towards the involved. She’d have preferred to help, at least.

Leia sighed, kissed his cheek, and headed off to her shuttle.

  


* * *

 

Darth Vader was not, of course, nervous. While he had not, between one thing and another -- those things being constant battles -- ever had a student, he had mastered everything worth knowing.

He did not look at Luke, who had himself barely spoken. Vader might almost have called him cowed, if such a thing were possible for any child of his and Luke in particular. But no. In the place of his son’s usual, if baffling, mixture of insolence and controlled fear, Vader sensed only a certain anxiety.

Concern for his immortal soul, doubtless, or some similar nonsense.

The door to his meditation chamber slid closed, and Vader finally turned to face Luke, thinking that he was closer to achieving his goals at this moment than he’d been in almost twenty years. But not close enough. Luke had shown no sign of relenting in regards to the Dark Side -- though, given his evident power, perhaps -- no. Together, they might already have the strength to destroy Palpatine, but as Emperor, Luke would almost certainly need the power of the Dark Side.

Though, if Palpatine himself were any indication -- but Luke would be strong enough. 

Vader put his doubts aside. “Obi-Wan’s  _trick_ is in fact an advanced technique that involves probing others’ minds for information, and then replacing it with your own suggestions.”

“You don’t bother with it very often,” said Luke. “Why?”

 _Because torture is one of the more arduous ways to gather information._ “Its usefulness is limited,” Vader told him. “It is only effective on the weak-minded -- which may be most of the galaxy, but cannot be depended on. The suggestions rarely last long.”

“Oh.” Luke looked away. “How am I going to . . . uh, practice? Without letting everyone know what’s going on?”

For answer, Vader simply sent for Daine Jir. 

“He is more cunning than strong-minded as such,” he said. “Still, you may find him something of a challenge.”

He explained the process while they waited for Jir, ignoring Luke’s evident revulsion. Vader himself had never been particularly fond of the technique, in either of his lives. He couldn’t remember using it more than a handful of times, and his memories had been sharper of late. As Anakin Skywalker, he had decried it as torture more than once, and as Darth Vader, he used it for that purpose alone.

Luke, he suspected, was not suited to torture of any kind. All the better, in a future emperor. _Luke_ would never use it casually, as Palpatine did, but only when necessary.

Jir entered, his expression intrigued. Vader told him that Luke would give orders and he was to ignore them, and retreated to observe his son’s progress. Luke’s hands were clenched at his sides, strain evident in every line of his body. Unsurprisingly, he failed on his first try.

On the second, Jir half-bent to untie his boots before frowning and standing upright. “I don’t --”

Luke stared at him unblinkingly, then with a small, imperious wave of his hand, said, “You’d rather not stand.”

“I’d rather not stand,” repeated Jir, and promptly sat, stretching his legs with evident enjoyment. Luke took a step back, covering his mouth with his fist, and the break in concentration was enough to send Jir scrambling to his feet.

“What --”

“That is all,” Vader told him, and Jir hastily retreated, still looking rather dazed. 

So did Luke. Vader suspected that any praise, however rightfully deserved, would be taken poorly. 

“As you saw,” he said instead, “it’s simpler when you suggest something the subject might reasonably want to do.”

“Right,” said Luke. “I, uh, wasn’t thinking of that. It just seemed a straightforward thing to ask.”

“Exactly.”

Vader did not consider it likely that Luke would make further progress in this, and switched to training him in other areas. He quickly discovered that his son had received a . . . singular education, skewed even more towards battle and clairvoyance than his own had been, and seemed decidedly pleased to learn anything unrelated to either.

“I . . . heard something about healing,” he said, rather cautiously. “It seemed useful. Can we actually keep people from dying?”

“No,” said Vader, and then -- “it depends on the case. The great healers studied for decades, and had extensive powers, but even they could not bring the dead to life.”

Luke blinked, his brows furrowing, then his eyes widened. “Oh. Speaking of the dead coming back -- um -- ”

“My mother has spoken to you again?” said Vader, unable to avoid the obvious conclusion.

Luke stared at his hands. “Um. Yes.” 

He had evidently been charged with a message far more unpalatable than Vader’s had been. “Well, what is it?” he demanded.

“She says she loves you,” Luke said, so quickly that a less attentive ear might not have understood him.

Vader often chose not to speak. Rarely was he at a loss for words. On this occasion, however, he could only stare at his son, his mind completely blank. 

“Oh, and I was wondering how I got kidnapped,” said Luke. “Obviously you got me back, but --”

_“What?”_

“I saw it,” said Luke, with another spike of anxiety. “But I’ve seen all sorts of things with you  _later_ , so it can’t have been very successful.”

Vader managed to reassemble his thoughts. “You were stolen by a Jedi, most likely Obi-Wan, shortly before your third birthday. I pursued him and he crashed the ship you were both in; I could tell you were dying, and then gone, and that he was unharmed.”

“That’s odd,” said Luke. “I suppose I must have been sent into hyperspace right before I -- well, didn’t die. Maybe  _they_ had a healer. But what I saw was earlier, when I was still a baby. Maybe a few days old.”

“You were never kidnapped until the Jedi took you,” Vader said flatly.

“Then that’s  _really _ odd,” said Luke. “Anyway, healing. Can you teach me?”

Vader paused. He had never had any occasion to heal with the Dark Side; even it could do little enough for his ruined body. With Obi-Wan, he had learned more for the sake of completion than anything else. He had not done it in many years, and had no desire to fail before his son.

On the other hand, he could not dismiss any opportunity, however small, to increase Luke’s gratitude to him. For some reason, he felt almost amused at the thought, and -- something else. Besides, healing was a more useful skill for a warrior than his youthful self had ever considered, however little value it might have for Vader particularly.

“I can,” he said, then admitted, “though it is more difficult to explain than to do.”

“Well, that’s all right,” said Luke, and held his left hand in front of him, and reached to his belt with the right.

“What -- ”

Luke grabbed a vibroblade and sliced it across his palm.

“What are you  _doing?_ ”

“You said it’s easier to demonstrate,” he said. “Now you can demonstrate. Here.”

For a moment, Vader could only stare at the hand, transfixed by the blood oozing from between the flaps of skin. It occurred to him that it was a little strange, that this should be horrifying, when he had personally sliced off the other hand. But that had been . . . an unfortunate reflex, not . . . 

Vader put that out of his mind. 

He ought to use the Dark Side, demonstrate its power in yet another fashion, but even if he could think of some way it could be used for this, he had no intention of experimenting with it on his son. 

_I am a Jedi_ ,  he told himself, as he had told himself daily for the last thirty years, and  _there cannot be any real harm in it_ ,  as he’d told himself a fair number of times, too.

Vader reached for the Force.

His grip seemed almost to close on air, on nothing, the Force slipping out and around him, remaining tauntingly beyond his grasp. Then he remembered the years of lessons Obi-Wan had drummed into his head, the control fought for and fought for again and finally achieved, then the ease with which everything had come to him. Mastery of the Living Force had been all but second nature to Anakin Skywalker --  _he_ was not that man, that man was dead, but he had a right to this, he _remembered_ \--

He forced himself into a semblance of calm and let himself fall into the familiar patterns of the Living Force -- just this once, and if Luke ever did something so  monumentally stupid  again, he’d slice off his other hand -- or, well, _something_ \--

The Force slipped into his grasp, seeming very nearly gleeful. It was a moment’s effort to heal the small slice, willing the skin to close, knit itself together. Luke’s eyes widened.

“There isn’t even a scar! That’s  _amazing_ ,” he said, looking more impressed than he had since he’d been stolen, and -- Vader wanted to call it  _something else_ , or  _undefinable_ or simply  _strange_ , but it was none of those things. He’d seen that hint of respect too often, and had prized it too highly, to mistake it for anything else. Even if Luke had never shown the slightest indication of it before, and he’d never expected that he would.

It was a small thing, he thought: nothing to the powers he might possess -- that he  _did_ possess, he reminded himself. But the Living Force was still blazing through him, burning away everything else, even pain, and without that constant agony and -- without the pain, his mind was clearer than it had been in years.

“-- didn’t teach me,” Luke was saying, his face animated. “Not that visions aren’t interesting, but  _this_ \-- hm, I think I saw how you did it, but . . . you can heal yourself, right?”

“Yes,” said Vader, “and if you so much as think about slicing yourself up again, I will  _confiscate_ that knife.”

Luke gave him an incredulous look, and then his mouth twitched into a small, bewildered smile. “All right,” he said. “But I do need to practice.”

“I suggest rats,” Vader told him. Reluctantly, he released his grip on the Living Force, and pain screamed back up his surviving nerves. He caught his breath, clenched his teeth, trying to think of anything else, and let the Dark Side sink back into him.

He could almost feel his mind clouding, his temper fraying, his power expanding. Luke evidently felt it as well; he looked up at him, his earlier expression replaced by concern.

“Father? Is -- can I -- do you need . . .?” 

Vader considered his son through a haze of -- something. He’d done it for Luke, he remembered. To keep Luke from . . . something else. To keep him safe, happy, protect him. 

Alone, he had enough power for that. Together, they had enough power for, apparently, anything. Luke, he decided, didn’t need any more. He didn’t need  _this_.


	17. Chapter 17

Leia practiced religiously while she was gone, and still more so once she returned. Her mind was so full of the colony and the Imperials and the Force and Han that she had little attention to spare for Luke’s decidedly odd behaviour, when he wasn’t teaching her. She noticed only that he seemed to have acquired a collection of voles for some reason, which Yoda regarded with some bemusement.

“-- guard, you must be,” he said, his voice thin and scratchy.

“Yes, Master,” Luke replied, in the tone he always got when he’d had an idea that might either be brilliant or awful, and wasn’t sure which. Leia hadn’t meant to overhear and had more important concerns anyway; she went back to fiercely meditating.

She didn’t sense the Force the way Luke did, not yet. It was too overwhelming to try and keep the ordinary world separate from her vision in the Force. Still, she sufficiently proved herself that Luke decided she was ready to actually do something. He had her levitating for hours, then running at impossible speeds, then dodging balls that he launched at her from every possible direction -- using the Force so she couldn’t guess from which direction.

She was tired, often bruised, and constantly irritable, but she was improving. 

Luke, for his part, was learning so quickly that his head felt stuffed with information, and using most of his spare time to practice healing on the voles he’d found. He felt rather guilty about it, even after he explained to Yoda, who rather to his own surprise, found nothing to complain of in Luke’s conduct -- or his father’s. Once or twice, Luke even thought he saw Obi-Wan by the cage, looking even more ambivalent than usual. He hadn’t relented in his conviction that Luke’s destiny was to avenge the Jedi by killing Vader and Palpatine.

That would never happen; not the former, anyway. He’d never kill his father, least of all now. Luke thought it’d be far better to bring the Jedi  _back_ , as they ought to have been. However warped Vader’s interpretation of events, and his thinking in general, Luke suspected there’d been at least an inkling of truth in what he’d said about them. It seemed like all the Jedi of that time had been soldiers like Obi-Wan, who fought for Imperial warlords and called it justice, or those who abandoned the galaxy to its own doom, like Yoda. He’d have to be better than that. So would Leia.

 _ And Father? _

He didn’t know. As his training had progressed, he’d heard considerably less about galactic domination and nothing about turning to the Dark Side. Perhaps Vader was biding his time, but -- he didn't think so. All he’d sensed from him was determination vying with the occasional fleeting regret. Luke didn’t  _expect_ that Vader would come back, would even feel remorse. But he thought it was a possibility now, which was more than he’d even considered before.

He honestly couldn’t think of a better revenge on the Empire, however unlikely it might be.

Vader himself would have been surprised to realize that Luke sensed anything different in him at all -- the exact degree of surprise depending on the hour, the day, his particular mood at the time, and what he’d been demonstrating that day. He very carefully did not think about Luke’s rapid improvement as a healer, except when he permitted himself to consider that it might be useful at some point in the future, and that an emperor who healed would likely be more popular than an emperor who blew up planets.

He also did not think about his struggles with the increasingly unstable Dark Side, to the point that it was almost a relief to fall back to the Living Force, however slippery it might be. Sometimes, he didn’t bother instructing Luke via explanation even when the explanation was . . . less than complex. It wasn’t any weakness on his own part, of course; demonstrations were quicker, and he remembered, now, that he’d always followed them more easily than dry lectures. It was no surprise to find that Luke was the same.

It was worthwhile, too, to be able to think without the distraction of pain and the erratic, clouded Dark Side. He needed the latter’s power, and the former fueled that power, but he was as much tactician as anything else, now. He needed the occasional moment of clarity, too. 

He needed it all the more at present, as the moffs and admiralty had finally realized that the Rebellion’s pinpoint accuracy was probably not coincidental. Nobody suspected  _him_ , of course; the admirals blamed the moffs, and vice-versa. 

_“Admiral Piett?”_ said Luke, incredulous. He had not met Piett in person, but by now he’d seen him on the holocam more than once. Vader had decided that his training was too important to be interrupted for political squabbles, and simply kept him out of the range of the holocam -- and didn’t hold any conversations that he’d rather didn’t go straight to Princess Leia’s ears. “But he couldn’t betray the Empire any more than he could . . . I don’t know, change his expression. Jerjerrod really blamed him?”

“Yes,” said Vader shortly. 

“To your face?”

“Yes.”

Luke, sobering, glanced up from his current exercise -- repairing a droid without touching it -- and bit his lip. “And he’s still alive?”

“At the moment.”

Luke relaxed and went back to the droid. Vader was, for once, unsurprised by his reaction. It had become apparent to him that Luke found sudden deaths to be . . . distressing, when they came by Vader’s hand, without due process, for all that he rarely argued with him over it. Normally, Vader would not have altered his habits around anyone's preferences, but in fact it was highly inconvenient to kill his subordinates. Janren’s death, which he did not regret, had taken weeks to smooth over. And on the heels of that thought came another: it was also rather  _stupid_ to kill his subordinates. 

Dead men, after all, could neither pay for their errors nor learn from them. Except Jedi, of course -- and even there, Vader had his doubts.

To himself, however, he could admit that he had looked at Jerjerrod’s smirking, simpering face, and thought nothing except that Luke would be upset if he killed him. Only then had he also concluded that it would be highly inconvenient, accomplish nothing, and that he didn’t particularly want to. At any rate, it amused him to think that Jerjerrod largely owed his survival to the tender sensibilities of a Rebel.

It was perhaps a week after this that Luke’s fine control over levitation advanced to the point that Vader mentioned, in passing, that he could probably survive the construction of a lightsaber.

Luke stared at him. Over the previous weeks, Vader had mentioned, also in passing, the various horrific fates that had befallen a number of Jedi apprentices who began construction before they were fully prepared.

“You’re sure?” he said doubtfully. “My . . . other teacher didn’t think --”

“Your  _other master_ would have had me wait until I was thirty,” said Vader, and elected not to mention what he’d been doing with his lightsaber at thirty. He continued on, “As I was saying, lightning is possible to create with the Dark Side, but it is extremely volatile and would likely kill me.”

“Um, you don’t need to show me,” Luke said. “About my lightsaber, I read in some of your files that every single part needs to be assembled with every other single part at the same moment or the whole thing will explode. Wouldn’t it be safer to do from a distance?”

“No. It’s impossible to control the components well enough from more than about a foot away. You can do it from where you’re sitting now.”

“But you’re right here,” Luke protested. “If anything goes wrong, it’ll kill you.”

Vader looked at him for a moment. “I can leave the room,” he said. “Or perhaps you’d like me to fly you to a suitably remote location?”

“No. I . . . no.” Luke sighed, then took out the components. He’d studied the lightsaber he now carried for weeks, and the diagrams Vader had -- inexplicably, as with so many other things over the years -- kept, and tracked down each component. The crystal he’d saved for last, paring down the strongest of the three he’d chosen until it was a glowing stone no larger than his thumb.

Vader watched, still wrapped in the Living Force from his latest demonstration, and he hadn’t bothered to release it yet -- but ready to grasp the quicker Dark Side at any sign of trouble.

Luke took a deep breath, then held his hands out, perhaps six inches from his body, the left palm-up and perpendicular to his belly, the right palm-down and at shoulder level. All the components floated into the air between the hands, his face bathed in the light of the crystal. They drew closer together until they were barely a hair’s-breadth apart. Luke’s forehead was damp with sweat, his eyes wide but determined.

Vader didn’t dare move, and had silenced the respirator for the moment. There was a tiny twitch in the Force, and the lightsaber flew together.

Luke stared down at the weapon, still floating between his hands. Then he let out a breath that was almost a laugh, and Vader’s respirator started up again.

“Look, Father, I -- ” Luke gave a happy, startled grin. “I’ve got to see it.” He jumped up, lightsaber in his hand, and flicked the switch. The blade flashed out, a slightly deeper blue than the other had been.  

Luke was, in everything but name, a Jedi Knight. Ridiculously enough, Vader felt -- not disappointed, but -- not quite as relieved as he’d expected he would be. Of course, he was not remotely ready to face the Emperor. If anything, he would have to train even  _more_ intensively now.

“I am glad you weren’t actually dead,” said Vader.

Luke laughed again, then looked over at him. “So am I, Father. Do you want yours back now?”

“No. I’m sure you can find some worthy purpose for it.”

  


* * *

 

“Your father’s  _what?_ ” 

She stared at the lightsaber. Luke had taught her a few basic forms with it, nothing more -- until now.

“I thought you’d like to have it,” said Luke, “now that I’ve got my own. You’ll need to practice with it fairly constantly, and -- well, I thought it’d be all right, but -- ”

“It’s fine,” she said, reaching for the extended hilt. She gave a small laugh. “Really. Um. It must have all kinds of history. Where did he get it?”

Luke wet his lips, then said, “He made it himself. But it does have a history. My father was a slave, you know.”

Leia lowered her hand, staring at him in horror. “What?”

“The Hutts captured my grandmother when she was a young woman, and he -- well, he was born into it. He had a transmitter embedded in his body when he was just a few days old. And they were lucky. They got sold to a small-time slaver in Mos Espa. He had a little shop. I don’t know if it’s still there. I never really wanted to see. But my uncle’s father came in to the shop one day, and . . . and he kept coming back even though he didn’t need to buy anything else. He fell in love with my grandmother and bought her freedom, and my father’s.”

Leia couldn’t help but wonder how much Luke’s grandmother had really had to say about all this. 

“Uncle Owen and Father were close, but they didn’t get on. Once, Aunt Beru told me that Father wasn’t . . . even though he was just a little boy when he was freed, it was always  _there_ with him. It was there when Obi-Wan found him, and when he went to -- when he became a Jedi and a soldier, when he built this. Sometimes I think it still is.”

“But he’s dead,” said Leia. 

“And that transmitter is still wherever his body is,” said Luke. “It’s not about feeling awful or anything. It’s just -- this came from him, and that’s where he came from. And it’s where  _we’re_ going.”

Leia looked down at the weapon, turned it in her hand. “That’s . . . quite a history,” she said. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Sure.” Luke pointed at the hook on the side. “That’s where it slides onto your belt, though you won’t be putting it there just now. It’s time to start learning how to fight properly.”

She grinned.

Her smile quickly faded, however, since Luke’s definition of  _fight properly_ did not, in fact, include fighting _him_.  At least not directly. 

“I picked up a remote on my way back,” he said, holding it up. “So basically, I’ll be shooting lasers at you and you need to deflect them. Don’t worry, I won’t have you do it blindfolded it right away.”

“Blindfolded,” repeated Leia.

In fact, it was exactly as he described it, except that -- of course -- he didn’t hold the remote, but levitated it through the air and had it shoot at her from different angles. He assured her that she did much better than he had, the first time he tried -- “though,” he added, “to be fair, it  _was_ the first thing I tried.”

She still went to bed rubbing her legs, unsure how many times she’d been hit. She did it better the next, and when Luke tied a piece of cloth over her eyes, she found herself automatically reaching out to sense the bolts flying at her. She still got hit a few times, but much less than she had the first day, with her eyes wide open.

The next day, she headed back out to follow some reports of a struggling Alderaanian community on Phaedria and bring more supplies to Carathis, leaving Luke and Yoda watching her go.

“Hm. Soon, urgent business you will have, too?” said Yoda, squinting up at him.

Luke hesitated. “Not just yet. Maybe the day after tomorrow. But it’s not urgent, exactly. Just -- ”

“Hmm?”

“He doesn’t kill people when I’m around,” Luke said, almost in one breath. “He doesn’t . . . he doesn’t like my being upset, or something.”

Yoda simply sighed. “Not the way of the Jedi, is this.”

“It’s not any kind of decent moral code,” Luke agreed, “but -- it’s better than the alternative. Sometimes I think the galaxy would have been better off I  _hadn’t_ been stolen from him. Though maybe I’d have ended up a monster. I don’t know.” He paused. “Speaking of kidnapping --”

He related his vision of a few weeks earlier. “Father didn’t even seem to _know_ about it.”

“Know of it he does not.”

Luke glanced down at him sharply. “But you’ve seen it?”

“No.” Yoda yawned, and stepped into the hut. Luke trailed after him. “Tired, I am. But time, it is, for you to know this.”

Luke suppressed a groan. “Another secret?”

“Heh. Last secret,” Yoda promised him. “Think back, to your vision. Strike as you strange, anything did?”

“Well, it was all strange. But -- nothing in particular.” Luke laughed a little. “Except that I was an incredibly loud baby.”

“Hm, yes, and no. Saw a child being taken away, you did. And heard a child scream. Not the same child.”

“What?” Luke shook his head, then dropped his face in his hands. “That’s not . . . I can’t even say  _it’s impossible_ any more. But it’s not very likely. Why would my mother have put me in a cradle with someone else’s baby?” He thought back. “Even a huge cradle.”

“Not someone else’s,” said Yoda. “ _ Hers _ . Your sister.”

“But I have no sister!” Luke protested.

Yoda rubbed his eyes, and Luke felt a pang of guilt.

“Look, you can explain all this -- somehow -- later, all right? It’s not --”

“No! Tell you now, I must. Ambra, the Jedi you saw. A gift for foresight, he had, but no control. No consideration of consequences. Disliked your father always. And then he saw something. Perhaps the future that has occurred. Perhaps another. Never did we know. Planned to take Skywalker’s child.”

Luke stared at him.

“But two there were. Twins, born early. Weakened, was your mother; easy to convince that she had no daughter. But forced to flee, he was.”

Luke managed a very small smile. “Senator Amidala interfered.”

“Mm, yes. He took the girl and fled.” Yoda shook his head. “Cast him out of the Order, we did, but never found him. Nor the girl. Never discovered anything, except her last name. Your mother’s, he gave her.”

“I have a sister,” Luke repeated blankly. “A  _sister_.  And I . . . but Father told me I was an only child. He wasn’t lying. He --”

“Away, he was, when you were born -- in battle,” said Yoda. “Unstable he was already, and enraged he would have been. Better, we thought -- if he did not know.”

“His  _daughter_ was kidnapped, and you thought it best that he didn’t know he’d ever  _had_ one?” Luke gave him a horrified look, and forced himself to remember that Yoda was dying, and this was almost twenty-one years ago. But -- his sister -- he had a sister -- a twin -- and his father,  _their_ father --

Yoda bowed his head. “Regret this, I do.”

“Is she even alive?”  _The Purges. Oh, Force._

“Perhaps. Never knew anything more,” said Yoda. “Nothing to follow was there. Too many Nelliths.”

“I’ll figure out what happened,” Luke said, and looked over at Yoda’s emaciated form and drooping eyelids. “Yoda, it’s . . . I forgive you, all right?” He didn’t know whether he meant it or not, but he needed to  _say_ it. “Just -- you need your rest. You can go to sleep now.”

“Mm. Rest I shall,” he agreed, and drifted off, his head wobbling. Luke dropped his head on his hand. 

_ Father and I can find out anything. We’ll find her, somehow. But I’ll have to  **tell** him. And they thought he’d be enraged back then -- ! _

 

* * *

 

Leia returned to a Yoda who barely woke, and a Luke whose moods were even more erratic than usual. Still, she’d improved enough that he discarded the remote, and let her fight against him.

She lost, of course -- she hadn’t reasonably expected to win against a taller, stronger, more experienced opponent, but it was by far the most enjoyable thing she’d done so far. They kept practicing, Leia’s abilities slowly increasing, until she managed to draw out their duel through twenty minutes and into the woods, even earning a brief retreat from him. 

Then something changed; she felt an odd, awful sense of familiarity, and a chill went down her spine. Luke promptly knocked her lightsaber out of her hand.

“Oh,” he said, and turned around, staring towards a dank cave.

Leia eyed it. “What is this place? I don’t like it.”

“The Dark Side is very strong here -- I don’t know why,” said Luke. “I’ve only been inside once.”

Leia felt a strong urge to run away, so far that she’d never see it again. She scowled and took a step closer. “Once?  Did you --”

“I failed,” said Luke simply. “I thought I could prove myself with my lightsaber. I suppose this means it’s your turn.”

Leia’s free hand went to her blaster, then stopped. “So, it’s some kind of test? Of what I can do with the Force?”

“It’s a test of what you  _are_ ,” he told her. He paused, then gave a sudden smile. “I’ve probably told you too much already. _I_ didn’t know anything when I went in. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Leia said firmly, and left the blaster beside Luke’s lightsaber.

She crawled into the cave, ducking beneath hanging vines. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a snake the size of her leg, lazily observing her, while a bright red frog hopped up a branch. She almost slipped on the damp moss beneath her feet. Nothing seemed particularly menacing -- not by Dagobah standards, at any rate.  

Leia glanced back, half-meaning to ask Luke if he’d got the wrong cave, somehow, but she couldn’t see past the entrance. A heavy fog had gathered behind her, obscuring everything it touched, and giving her the distinct impression that going through it would be  _very_ unwise.  

Not the wrong cave, then.

A voice shouted out of the darkness. “That’s her! That’s the princess!”

Leia spun around, seeing nothing but the oppressive gloom of the cave. She barely restrained a scornful laugh. Of course, what supernatural test of character would be complete without spectral voices and delusions?  

“That’s  _all?_ ” she demanded incredulously.

A blaster bolt flew past her ear. Instinctively, Leia raced away: she didn’t have any weapons, she was going to get killed, she was --

She was going to be a  _Jedi_ and she wasn’t running from  _anyone_.

Leia stopped in her tracks. She could hear their voices approaching. Had she really been tracked down? Or was it just some trick of the cave? What had happened to Luke in here?

How did you succeed? How did you  _fail?_

She could hear the voices approaching again. Leia could have sworn she caught a Coruscanti accent amid the murmuring. She waited, her breath coming fast.

“Ah, this way,” said the Coruscanti voice. “Princess Leia, you must realize there’s no point in hiding. There’s no one else to die for you now.”

It was Tarkin.

Leia forgot everything. She forgot that he was dead -- _Luke, you killed him, everyone said you killed him, how could you let him not be dead?_ \-- forgot that this was a  test, forgot every thought of success or failure. She forgot everything except that he was  _here_ , somehow, and she hated him, and Alderaan, he wouldn’t take Alderaan away from her again.

She could feel power building in her, like -- like -- she didn’t know. She’d never felt anything like this before. But she knew she could make them pay. She had power, now, more power than Tarkin with his mechanical terror could ever think of --

Booted feet came around the corner, towards her, and Leia sprang out with outstretched hands, thinking of nothing except power and hatred and she hadn’t even decided which way she was going to kill them, and  _lightning_ burst from her fingertips, crackling and blinding her. 

Leia dropped her hands, and the Force, in sheer astonishment. Her hands didn’t hurt at all. It couldn’t have been real lightning, just . . . some odd Force trick. But she could smell burning clothes. 

She stepped forward, peering around, and then clapped a hand over her mouth.

There _was_ __a dead body sprawled out in front of her. But it wasn't Tarkin’s. It was her father's.

  


* * *

 

Leia was subdued for the next day. She could tell Luke knew that she’d failed, though he didn’t say anything -- didn’t even try to comfort her. She didn’t know if he’d become that excruciatingly sensitive, or if he was simply too abstracted with other matters. In any case, they didn’t declare her unfit to be a Jedi and cast her out, as she half-expected.

Luke may have failed, but she didn’t think he’d failed like _that._

She continued her training with renewed zeal, practicing with Luke, with the remote, with just about anything she could convince to stand still long enough. They laid out their plan, whispering together, and Yoda awoke long enough to inform them the Force would be with them. 

Then they put the plan in motion. The droids went in first, Artoo concealing their lightsabers and positively gleeful about it. Leia contacted Chewbacca, who agreed to be a prisoner yet again, and she marched inside in full bounty hunter regalia. The explosive was a bit of a risk, but she and Luke had agreed that it was worthwhile to earn her bona fides.

Leia was careful neither to pay too much or too little attention to Han, his features still frozen in a rictus of agony. It would be so easy to sneak out and rescue him, she thought. Just --

No. No, this was why they had plans. She’d fooled Jabba for now. Better to keep it that way.

She watched, half-sickened, as the slave-dancers were paraded before Jabba, and one fed to a half-starved Rancor. Had Luke’s grandmother been one of those once?

She didn’t so much as twitch when Luke himself marched in. The trick didn’t work on Jabba, but that wasn’t important. Everybody was in place. She looked over at Lando, and he gave a slight nod. If Fett, not far behind her, noticed the exchange or recognized him, he gave no hint of it.

Leia stood stock-still when she saw Luke standing on the trapdoor. 

_Luke?_ she thought, but he never seemed to hear her unless she spoke aloud. And she couldn’t help him if she got captured too. She remained in place, trying not to listen for screams.

It worked. Somehow, it worked. Luke killed the Rancor, and Jabba led his entire retinue out onto his barges. Leia stalked around, avoiding Boba Fett, and wandering as close to the plank as she could. Everything was ready. Threepio -- well, he’d done his part. There was Artoo with the lightsabers. Lando. Chewie. Luke. 

She was just beside the guards now, right as Luke stepped off the edge of the plank.

 _“No!”_ Leia shouted, yanking off her mask, and their moment of shock was all the time she needed. She raced off the plank after him.


	18. Chapter 18

Leia launched herself up, snatching Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber out of the air. She ignited it as she landed, blocking every blaster bolt that came her way. 

It wasn’t hard. She’d prepared for this, after all. Spent hours practicing -- practicing with  _ Luke_, who made a far worse opponent than Jabba’s minions. She sliced through ten, twelve, she didn’t even know how many, sent others flying through the air, spun at a whisper behind her, flung a chunk of rock at her newest opponent’s head, then brought the saber down as he ducked.

She was vaguely conscious of Luke, not far from her, though she couldn’t make him out even when she happened to look towards him. He seemed a blur of motion, most of his enemies dead before they realized they’d been attacked.

Leia caught a stray thought.

_ Cannon -- the barge -- _

“ I’ll take care of it,” Leia shouted in his general direction. She ran, not even bothering to deactivate the lightsaber -- several guards wandered into it for some reason, their movements strangely slow and sluggish. Then she flipped as high as her momentum and the Force could take her, cutting her way through the new set of guards. 

She’d have to dispose of Jabba, Leia realized.

She burst into the room he occupied, and grinned. His personal guards had all gone to attack Luke --  _ right, good luck with that,  _ she thought.

Jabba said something to her. Leia understood Huttish, but she didn’t bother listening.

Instead, she thought of the slave girls she’d seen in the palace. Jabba was a monster, just like the one who had slaughtered and enslaved Luke’s people. His grandmother had been a girl like that, once, lucky even to survive long enough to bear a child. To bear Luke’s father, the Jedi Knight who died with a slave transmitter still embedded in his body. 

So what if it hadn’t been this particular slaver? Jabba was just as monstrous. He’d put Han on his wall. He’d thrown that poor girl into the Rancor pit, for  _ entertainment.  _ He deserved to die just as much as any other one did.

Leia looked down at Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber. She had to kill him some way or another. It’d be appropriate to use this, the weapon of the slave boy who’d gotten out. Efficient, too. Quick.

Jabba didn’t deserve quick. He deserved to suffer, like Oola had; like Han had; like  _ she  _ had, when she’d been at the mercy of his fellow monsters, and watched Alderaan burn. It hadn’t been him on the Death Star, but it didn’t matter. She hated him, she hated them all, and she wanted him to pay for what he was.

Leia remembered her failure in the cave. She’d acted wildly, without thinking. It had to be different this time. It had to be controlled. It had to be about justice, not fear.

Luke, son and grandson of slaves, would understand. 

Leia put Anakin’s lightsaber away. She thought of the suffering this creature had caused, that everyone like him had caused. She thought of what he deserved, let the Force spark through her, racing towards her outstretched hand. 

It took a moment, and Leia distantly thought this would be too slow and inconvenient for most things. But Jabba could hardly move.

Lightning arced from her fingers. Or something like lightning. She’d never  _ seen  _ anyone struck by actual lightning, but she thought it generally left burns, as it had in the cave, and Jabba’s flesh remained unmarked even as he shrieked and wailed in anguish. 

He sounded a little like Oola had, when the Rancor ate her. Leia felt a peculiar blur of satisfaction and regret at the thought. It wasn’t pleasant to do something like this, but  _ somebody  _ had to see justice done. She’d seen too much of the galaxy to think it would happen naturally.

It took him five minutes to die. Leia dropped her hand, staring down at his corpse, his black tongue sticking out of his mouth. Had it always been black? She wasn’t sure.

_ There’s a battle,  _ Leia told herself. It didn’t seem important. Oh, there was Lando, shooting Boba Fett into the Sarlacc’s maw. How ignominious. And Luke was fighting four or five guards at once, his lightsaber an arc of light, somebody behind him gasping for air. He looked almost as remote as she felt --

For the first time, it didn’t seem right. Not -- he shouldn’t be like that. Not  _ Luke. _

Luke. Han. They  _ had  _ to win this, they had -- she had to control the cannon, take out as many as she could from here. Leia felt as if her heart had just started pumping again. She unhooked the lightsaber from her belt, vaulted over Jabba’s corpse, and raced towards the cannon, spinning it around and firing at everything that wasn’t Luke, Chewbacca, or Lando.

The rest of the battle passed in a blur, screams and engines and the humming of the two lightsabers all mingling together. Afterwards, weary from more than fighting, Leia took a deep breath, grabbed a rope, and swung back to Luke’s barge.

He looked pale and strained, but no longer indifferent. Leia thought he was searching her expression for the same thing; her own guilty relief crept over his face.

Luke knew what she’d done. He knew, and he  _ did  _ understand. But not for the reason she’d expected.

Leia glanced down at the body of an enormous guard, sprawled just to her right. She didn’t suppose he’d expected to have trouble restraining a slight man like Luke.  

He was still clutching his throat.

“ I’m not flying all the way back to Han with these,” she said, summoning up enough energy to fling the corpse over the railing. Luke joined her, and Chewie lifted the heavier remains by hand. Lando offered to help, but Leia took one look at his face and ordered him away until they’d finished the grisly task.

They reached the palace without any further inconvenience. Jabba had nearly emptied it for his little jaunt in the desert, so they encountered no serious trouble inside, either. 

Luke, Leia, and Chewbacca stood back, and Lando carefully warmed the carbonite. Her eyes burned as she watched, Han’s immobile stone features melting into familiar flesh. For a moment, he seemed asleep, or dead; then he gave a small groan, and half-collapsed. They all leapt forward, but Leia and Luke reached him first, steadying his wavering figure. He flinched back.

“ Just relax for a moment!” said Leia. “You’re free of the carbonite.”

Han moaned.

“ He has hibernation sickness,” Lando said. “We’d better -- ”

Han reached out, blinking and gazing around wildly. “I can’t see!”

“ Your eyesight will return in time,” said Luke, then winced as Han’s flailing hand caught his face, fingers leaving indentations around his eyes and cheekbones. Chewbacca seized his friend in a crushing hug.

Han choked. “Chew -- Chewie?”

Chewie gave a loud, joyful roar, then set him down, letting Luke and Leia support him again. Han laughed dazedly.

“ Luke? Leia? Is that you? Where are we?”

“ Jabba’s palace,” said Leia, relishing the pressure of his warm, living body, even as she faltered under its weight. “You were brought here a year ago, and we just rescued you --” She glanced over at Luke. “We’ve got to get him taken care of.”

“ The base --” Lando began.

“ _Lando?” _

“ It’s all right,” Leia said soothingly. “He betrayed the Empire as soon as you went in carbonite, Han. How long does it usually last?”

“ Anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks,” said Lando.

Luke shifted his weight a little. “Dagobah’s closer, and there’s nothing the medics can do that Yoda can’t.”

“ Look,” Han said, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I know sitting around gabbing isn’t going to help us escape from Jabba. You all got a plan for that, right?”

There was a brief, awkward silence.

“Aw,  _ hell -- _ ”

“ No, we -- it’s not a problem,” Leia assured him. “We took care of Jabba already. We can just walk out.”

Han tried to squint at her. “ _Walk _ out? You’re kidding, right? And what do you mean, you took care of him?”

_ I shot lightning out my fingertips and electrocuted him to death. _

“ It’s a long story,” said Leia.

“We’ll explain everything later,” Luke added. “For now, we’ve got to get you to the  _ Falcon.  _ Lando, keep your blaster ready. Chewie, can you manage Han? We need to have the lightsabers out.”

“Lightsaber _s? _ You got two of them now?” 

Han yelped as Chewie picked him up. Luke fell back, keeping an eye on anything that might creep up from behind, while Leia ran ahead with Lando, her weapon glowing a brilliant blue-white. 

“ Right, later.”

No new misfortunes accosted them, and they managed to leave the palace and fly to the  _ Falcon  _ without delay. Chewie carried a protesting Han up the gangplank, Lando burned the barge, and Luke and Leia stood guard.

Once Han had been nagged and drugged into sleep, Chewie settled into the cockpit with Lando, and Leia dragged Luke off to her quarters.

“ What now?” she demanded. “We never planned beyond this.”

He walked to the window, hands clasped behind his back. Something about the gesture tugged at her memory, but she couldn’t say what.

“ We should get Han to Dagobah. Let Yoda look over him,” Luke said. “You have your training to finish and refugees to find. The new Alderaanians you’ve found agreed to settle on Carathis, even with that Imperial project in the same system?”

“ All but unanimously,” said Leia, sighing. “They’ve already renamed it New Alderaan and started building. The Imperials seem to be trying to avoid notice themselves, but it’s incredibly dangerous. Still, just about every Alderaanian I’ve met is willing to risk it -- they’re flooding in.”

“ Good.” Luke fell silent for a few minutes, and Leia could almost hear his mind racing. “I need to meet up with my contact again.”

“ The Imp? The Force-sensitive one?”

Luke nodded, stiffly. “I . . . the thing is, they’re -- I still can’t tell you their name, but this person is fairly highly-placed. And they owe me a favour. A big one.”

“When you say  _ big _ , what exactly do you mean?” Leia frowned at his back. “Is this Imperial Palace-big? Sector-big?”

“ Open-ended big,” said Luke. “I haven’t wanted to waste it on something I could do just as easily myself, or -- well, just to waste it. But I could ask them to ensure that the colony gets overlooked.”

Leia caught her breath, and Luke slowly turned around. His expression was very cautious, almost blank. 

“ You think this person could do that?”

“ Yes,” said Luke, “But I’d have to tell them about it in the first place, and -- they hate the Emperor and disapprove of blowing up planets in general, but remember, they’re no friend of the Rebellion either.” 

“ I’ll call for a vote,” Leia said. She hesitated, then summoned up a smile. “This is it, isn’t it?”

Luke’s brow furrowed. “This is what?”

“ Everything’s different now. I thought it’d go back to the way it was, once we rescued Han, but -- it’s not. We’re hardly even in the Rebellion any more. I have to put my people and my training first. You’re going to keep going off and -- contemplating your navel in the desert, or whatever it is you're doing. Han . . . I don’t even know what he’ll do, without that debt hanging over his head.”

“ He’ll go wherever you go, I think,” said Luke.

Leia swallowed. “Luke --”

She didn’t know what to say.  _ Why won’t you? Why won’t you stay with me -- with us? We could fight the Empire together, all three of us. Two Jedi and Han Solo -- what could stop us?  _ or  _ What are you hiding? Why aren’t you telling me? Does anyone else know?  _ or  _ You’re my best friend. I do love you, it’s just -- _

“ I wish I could stay with you two,” Luke said, blue eyes steady. “I’ll miss you. What I’m doing, though, it’s too important to give up.”

“ More important than the war?”

“ For me, yes,” he said. “For me, it’s more important than anything. I don’t imagine anyone else cares much. But it might be able to end the war, if it goes well. I just can’t tell you -- I’m sorry.”

“ Have you told Nellith?” she asked, unable to keep her eyes from narrowing a little.

“ Nellith!” he said blankly. “What -- how did you hear about that?”

She looked guilty. “I didn’t mean to see. I just glanced at your datapad the other day, when I kept it from falling in the swamp. It said  _ look for Nellith  _ and had a picture of a woman next to it.”

Luke’s expression went from astonished, to bewildered, to grieved, and finally landed in the vicinity of bemused. “It’s my mother’s picture,” he said. “That was her name -- Arissa Nellith. And I just found out that she . . . that I . . . well, that I wasn’t always an only child.”

“ _What?” _

“ I had a twin. A sister. I didn’t know, my father didn’t even know -- she was kidnapped right after we were born, before he got back from the wars. Only Yoda knew, and even he has no real idea what happened afterwards. Just that she had our mother’s name, not Father’s.”

“ _Nellith,” _ Leia repeated, and winced. “Oh, I didn’t mean -- I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Do you think you can find her?”

“I have to try,” said Luke. “So, um, obviously, I didn’t tell her about . . . well, anything. And definitely not the -- the thing I can’t tell you about. I can’t tell  _ anyone  _ about that. Not even Yoda or Obi-Wan, really.”

“You can’t tell us  _ anything? _ ”

He considered, chewing on his lip. Leia waited.

“ There’s someone,” he began, then stopped, looking frustrated. “You know that there are some people who do . . . things?”

“ Well,” said Leia, “as a matter of fact --”

“Great things, I mean,” Luke said. “Or they choose not to do terrible ones. Not like you or I would, though -- not because they think it’s wrong, or right, or anything like that. They don’t care about those. But they love people who do, so they do it for  _ them. _ ”

_ That kind of morality is worthless,  _ she wanted to say, but then she thought of Han -- Han two and a half years ago, to all appearances unable to consider anything beyond himself and his own interests, turning back and risking his life to save Luke. Han even last year, determined to get her to safety before abandoning the Rebellion. He didn’t fight for causes and if he had any ideals, she hadn’t seen them. But he was still --

“ I might know someone like that,” she admitted. “But what does it have to do with your secret mission?”

“ I do, too,” he said, and grinned. “A different one, that is. I can’t tell you their name -- I’m sorry, I can’t. But they’re like that. They have a lot of power, but their only real compass is the person they care about.” He paused. “And, well, that’s me.”

Leia’s lips thinned. “How many immensely powerful, morally ambiguous people-who-cannot-be-named do you  _ know? _ ”

“ Well --”

“It’s the same person, isn’t it?” She put her hands on her hips. “That Imperial contact of yours is in  _ love  _ with you, isn’t she? You’re having an affair with some -- some grand admiral, or something, and --”

Luke looked faintly ill.

“ Not exactly,” he replied, in a tone which seemed to suggest that people who kiss smugglers should not throw stones. “I just -- it’s complicated, and I can’t explain. But if I can keep my . . . if just occasionally being around is enough to keep this person from committing crimes against sentience, it’s worth it. And if they can help me find my sister --”

Leia softened. “Oh,” she said. “Well, family’s different.”

“ Yes.”

She glanced up at him. “You’re sure she’s out there?”

“I’m sure she  _ was_,” said Luke. “I’m --  _ we’re_ _\-- _ almost twenty-one. Anything could have happened in that much time. She might not care about family or -- but even if she’s dead, I need to find out what happened. And beyond that, I need to master the ways of the Force, to help my . . . friend, to fight the Emperor in whatever ways I can. I’ll be busy. But when you're ready for more training -- ”

Leia smiled. “I’ll let you know.”

They looked at one another. Luke smiled.

“I’ll be back soon enough, anyway,” he said. “There  _ is _ one more thing we need to do, and all three of us should be there for it.”

 

* * *

  
Five weeks later, Luke stepped out of his ship, and onto the rich, springy soil of the planet formerly known as Carathis. Han, only squinting a little in the bright sunlight, met him.

“ Hey, kid.” Despite the careless greeting, Han gave him a tight hug, then dropped his arm over Luke’s shoulder. “You ready for this?”

“ I hope so,” said Luke. “You look better, Han.”

“ Could hardly look worse. The first time I looked in the mirror -- not that damn swamp, a real mirror -- I just about scared myself witless. At least I can see again. Leia was fussing enough to drive any man out of his mind.” Han paused. Luke kept his eyes resolutely forward. “Speaking of Leia. She says you’ll be leaving as soon as we’re done with this little get-together.”

The arm slung companionably around Luke’s shoulders seemed, without warning, to grow heavier. He swallowed.

“ Not right away,” he said. “But I have to get back when I can.”

Han glanced down at him, and grinned. “Have you really seduced Imperial secrets out of Admiral Daala? I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you, but --”

“ _What?” _

Luke couldn’t help but lift incredulous eyes to his friend’s face. Han burst out laughing.

“ I’d as soon kiss a Wampa, myself, but hey, we all do what we can for the cause.”

“ _Daala?” _

“ All right, I might have made up that part. But Leia says --”

“I haven’t seduced  _ anyone _ ,” he said, with an exasperated sigh.

Han shook his head. “Figures.” 

They picked their way towards the middle of the burgeoning city, Han meandering through back streets and small alleys.

It was -- he’d gotten used to missing Han, almost. But Han alive and well and  _ Han  _ would be quite different from Han frozen in stasis. And he’d be leaving Leia, too. Not for a few weeks, but --

With a sudden sharp clarity, Luke remembered the moment when he and Han had first seen each other after they’d destroyed the Death Star. (Everyone always said it was  _ him_, but he’d have been dead at his father’s unwitting hand, without Han.) They’d still been high on adrenaline, running to hug each other, and then there’d been Leia, flying into their arms, the three of them laughing, babbling, ecstatic to be alive and together. 

He’d been a little jealous of Han, at first, but after the battle, it seemed -- not stupid, exactly, but irrelevant. He supposed he ought to be jealous now. Leia loved Han. She’d probably marry him. They’d be together, while Luke followed his own path, so distant from theirs that he couldn’t even tell them about it. 

Instead, he didn’t  _ mind_. Maybe because of the carbonite, maybe because petty rivalries had no place in his life now, but he didn’t envy or resent Han at all. He just dreaded leaving them for -- for wherever blood and destiny took him, dreaded  _ missing  _ them.

Luke forced himself to smile. “I should have known you’d find all the shortcuts before they even finished the streets,” he said.

“ We’d never get to the palace otherwise,” said Han. “Everybody’d want to see the Jedi Knight and -- well, it seems I’m a hero, or something. I can’t go anywhere without old ladies pinching my cheek.”

Luke burst out laughing. “I really  _ am  _ sorry I won’t be here to see that. Somebody better catch it on a holovid. You know, for posterity.”

Han cheerfully smacked him, and despite his words, managed to forge a path through the thick crowd at the center of town. Luke had just caught sight Leia standing next the auburn-haired woman he’d seen before -- Mon Mothma -- when she ran up to them.

“ There you are -- oh, you’re ready,” she said, and regarded Han’s uniform and Luke’s Jedi regalia with approval. She herself seemed oddly unlike -- well, herself, a beleaguered assistant rushing behind her to unbraid her long hair, another fussing over her stiff, heavy skirts. Yet there was something familiar about it too, the plain hair, the dark red brocade --

The vision. The very first one, when he’d seen himself -- when he thought he’d seen himself as a dark lord, even Leia bowing before him, and instead --

He hadn’t thought of it for months. Not  _ really  _ thought of it, anyway; he’d just gotten used to the horror that lay right in his path. Luke stared at her for a moment, stunned as much by the absence of crushing dread as by Leia herself.

“ I’m not sure about my pronunciation,” he finally managed to say. “I don’t actually speak Old Alderaanian, so --”

Leia waved a dismissive hand. “Hardly anybody does. It’s the tradition that’s important. You do remember --”

“ Of course he does,” Han said, laughing. “I’d bet you the  _ Falcon  _ that he’s been reciting it in his sleep. Well, maybe not the  _ Falcon_, but --”

“ I just don’t want to make any mistakes.”

Leia kissed his cheek, then Han’s. “It’ll be fine,” she assured them, the picture of serenity, then sailed off to scold a stone-faced general.

In the end, though, she was right. By Leia’s insistence, the royal palace had yet to be built, or even planned beyond the most basic dimensions, but her architects and engineers had insisted on erecting a dais where the throne room would be. Atop it they’d placed a pedestal and a heavy chair -- simple in its lines, but carved out of priceless Alderaanian ebony, and as Luke had seen months earlier, indubitably a throne.

Tradition was important, Luke thought. 

As the crowd fell silent, he ascended the dais and turned to face them, Leia silent and immobile just to his left, on the lowest step. On Alderaan, this task had always fallen to a Jedi -- a Jedi Master, usually, but a lowly knight sometimes performed it when a master couldn’t be spared. And with only four Jedi left in the galaxy --  _ maybe  _ five -- one of whom would be decidedly unwelcome, it naturally fell to Luke.

Luke took a deep breath, then began to recite the words he had learned. They were wholly unfamiliar to him and meant nothing, but a number of Alderaanians -- mostly elderly -- began to sob, so he assumed he must be doing it right. 

Towards the front of the crowd, he saw the familiar figures of the high command -- a few of the pilots closest to Leia -- Han in the front row, uncharacteristically sober-faced. Luke glanced past them, his gaze lingering on the masses of Alderaanians. Even as his voice rang out, he couldn’t imagine what this must mean to them -- what it must be like. Nothing he had suffered could compare to this.

Luke’s eyes fell on a slim, sharp-featured man -- not Alderaanian, but familiar, and not only from the vision. From the _Executor._ Jir.  He looked, as he had there, nondescript and innocuous. His attention, Luke could tell, was focused neither on Luke, Leia, the Rebels, or the Alderaanians, but on any possibility of encountering fellow Imperials.

Vader, it seemed, had every intention of paying his debt, even though so much was different now. It shouldn’t be a surprise, really .

Luke did his best to ignore the Imperial in their midst, and finished the last of the traditional Alderaanian words. He took a deep breath, and gestured at Leia. Her long hair and crimson sleeves fluttered a bit in the breeze, but her face was smooth and controlled -- and very, very pale -- as she stared at her fellow survivors.

“ Sons and daughters of Alderaan,” Luke said, the formula reverting -- thankfully -- back to Basic. “Here is Leia Amidala Organa, daughter and only child of Bail Organa, last sovereign of Alderaan. Shall she be queen here?”

Had he not known better, Luke would have expected to hear a roar of assent, or even dissent. Instead, the crowd fell to their knees, just as he had foreseen -- but not to him. To  _ Leia. _

Leia drew a deep, shuddering breath. Then she turned, lifting her skirts just high enough to climb the last few standards, and knelt before him.

With a flicker of thought, Luke levitated the crown into the air, just above her head. It would have been heavy, had he held it in his hands -- he didn’t even know how it had been made so quickly, but he had no doubt that it was as priceless as everything else in the immediate vicinity. 

Leia’s eyes closed, her lips pressing tightly together. With a final, precise gesture, Luke brought the crown down to rest on her head.

“Behold the Queen!” Luke cried, his voice pitched to carry as far as possible. He helped Leia to her feet, and then stepped quietly aside, leaving her to walk the last few steps to -- to  _ her  _ destiny, he thought. 

She did, turning towards her people at the last possible moment, and then settling on her throne, sitting proud and alone. 

The crowd finally exploded, screaming with joy, relief, triumph. Daine Jir cheered with the rest of them. Mon Mothma and her generals clapped as loudly as anyone. Han Solo, irrepressible as ever, winked at the queen.

For the last time in what would likely be months, Luke Skywalker opened his mind to her.  _ May the Force be with you,  _ he thought.

Queen Leia’s smile was more than a little bittersweet.


End file.
